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 Santos Ramirez-Chavez takes a table-level view of his pluot served at the close of school on Tuesday. Clearview students are being served fruits and vegetables three days a week to teach lifelong healthy eating habits. (Bulletin photo by Mike Wray) |
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011
By ASHLEY JACKSON - Bulletin Staff Writer
Clearview Early Learning Center students didn’t flinch Tuesday when they were asked to eat dinosaur eggs.
“I like it ... it tastes good,” said student Machi Martin. What Machi didn’t realize is that the dinosaur eggs really were pluots — a fruit that is part plum and part apricot — that were renamed to be more appetizing to a group of 4-year-olds. The students bought into the story. Out of about 15 students in teacher Beverly Keaton’s class, only about four of them didn’t raise a hand when Keaton asked who liked the “dinosaur eggs.” Three days a week, Clearview’s 4-year-olds are given different types of fruits and vegetables for snacks at the end of each school day to eat before they head home, according to Sheilah Williams, director of early childhood and school nutrition services at Clearview Early Childhood Center. The food is being provided at the school through a USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Grant for the school year. Clearview received a total of $7,146, which pays for the snacks and supplies needed to serve the snacks, Williams said. The purpose of the program is to encourage students to try new foods, teach lifelong healthy eating habits and increase the amount of produce that children eat. Experts say that children should eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day to get the nutrients they need to grow, maintain a healthy weight and prevent certain diseases in the future, according to a brochure about the program. Also, by exposing the children to these food options, they can influence their parents to buy fruits and vegetables when they are together in grocery stores, Williams said. It also shows students that there is an alternative to fried chips and cookies, she added. Getting students to eat less fattening foods is important because in 2008, between 16 and 33 percent of children and adolescents were considered obese, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s website. Williams feels that childhood obesity is caused by a lack of exposure to different food options. Introducing students to healthy options at an early age can stop bad eating habits from forming, she said. Some of the fruits and vegetables that the students will be exposed to are avocados, asparagus, different kinds of apples, berries, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, clementines, corn, grapes, kiwi, mango, papaya, pears, pineapple spears, snow peas, squash, starfruit, sweet potatoes and others, according to a brochure. The fruits are served in their most natural state so that the students “are getting all the nutrients,” Williams said. Keaton said she keeps a tally sheet in her classroom to see who likes the healthy options and who doesn’t. For the most part, the children like the fruits and vegetables, she said. The program is partnered with the Virginia Cooperative Extension, whose representatives come once a week to teach the “Leap Nutrition” curriculum, according to Williams. The representatives teach the children about healthy eating habits and bring foods for the students to try, such as yogurt parfaits and smoothies. On Tuesday, the Virginia Cooperative Extension representatives brought porcupine meatballs — which consist of ground turkey in tomato juice — for the students to taste, according to Keaton. The representatives also read a book that goes along with the lesson. Tuesday’s book was called “D.W. the Picky Eater,” Keaton said. Also partnered with the program is Smart Beginnings, which provided books, called “Color Me Healthy,” to classrooms at Clearview to incorporate into daily lesson plans, according to Williams. The book provides lessons about the colors of fruits, physical exercises and how different fruits and vegetables are grown, Keaton said. Reaching out to parents also is important to ensure that students eat a healthy diet at home. Last year, classes were available for parents at Clearview Early Learning Center that showed different physical exercises that they could do with their children, gave them healthy recipes and gave them magnets with the food pyramid or “my plate” good recommendations on them, according to Williams. She added that the city school system hopes to continue those classes this year. Many parents who took the classes said they didn’t like fruits and vegetables. So the classes attempted to persuade the parents to try to like the healthy options and in turn, provide them to their children, Williams said. Newsletters are sent home with students each month to give parents recipes and ideas on how to incorporate a balanced diet in the home, she added. Healthy snacks also are provided three times a week to students at Albert Harris Elementary School, along with a more advanced curriculum such as learning to read a nutrition label, Williams said. Albert Harris Elementary School’s program is in its second year.(Published in the Martinsville Bulletin, a local publication of a small Virginia town.)
Topics for Discussion:
1. By exposing children to new food options, parents will be pressured to purchase certain types of foods. Is obesity caused by a distaste/lack of exposure to these healthy foods or by socio-economic inequalities? Are we oversimplifying the problem?
2. I chose this article because it shows that you don't have to live in a big, progressive city to start a movement for healthy foods in schools. How can this small scale success be extended and supported by the USDA across the country?
1. I believe the programs at these schools are not attempting to solve obesity problems entirely; I do not think one program could highlight all of the needed solutions. They are promoting healthy diets that provide "nutrients need[ed] to grow, maintain healthy weight[s] and prevent certain diseases in the future". In turn, I think the biggest result of this program is creating awareness of how to eat healthy and installing that notion at a relatively young age, in hopes that even if an individual does not make/have healthy choices they have modes for comparison. I think obesity does relies on a number factors, far from what one solution/program like this could offer; it is affected by income, physical environment, politics, etc. However, I think education/knowledge is one of the best tools for prevention.
ReplyDelete2. I think the main process for getting this program going across the country would be additional funding and a way to measure this program's success. Additional funding is more likely to be supported in the next couple of years if obesity trends in the U.S. continue to escalate like we have seen, through the maps shown in class. Another way to get support for growing this program would be providing evidence of this program's success. On one hand, I think it is easy to say that the kids in this program are making healthier food choices and this will promote healthier choices in the future. On the other hand, results from this program may not be in a more "recorded" form until evidence like a decrease in the region's obese percentages have shown a decrease, compared to similar regions.
1) Obesity is caused by a combination of these two things; however, it is easy for the more wealthy to have a healthy eating lifestyle than the poor. Obviously, if children/people are not exposed to the healthy foods, they are not going to know that they are an option to eat. Also, if they are given the opportunity to have a LIttle Debbie or grapefruit for breakfast, they will likely choose the LIttle Debbie unless they have a liking for grapefruit. When people have less money, they are forced to buy cheaper products. Generally, cheaper products are more likely to be less healthy than more expensive products, so those who have lower incomes are more likely to buy less healthy foods and in turn be more likely to be obese. However, those who have a stable.high income can be just as likely to buy cheap things and expensive things that taste good but are not healthy. Gluttony is rampant in the United States. When one takes all this and more into consideration, it can be concluded that the problem is oversimplified. Educating people about the risks of an unhealthy diet and obesity and the fact that obesity (in many cases) can be avoided is more important than just identifying why the problems exist and the classes that they are present in.
ReplyDelete2) I agree with Michael that in order for the program to continue additional funding is needed as well as hard evidence that it is actually effectively lowering obesity, but those results will take time. In the meantime, I think that just spreading the concept and program to surrounding areas and advertising the program in general can help the movement to gain traction. The more people who are behind the idea, the more sway it will have in society. The USDA could help this process out by funding the advertising and studies to support it. I think it is a cool and good idea overall, but am not completely sold on the fact that it will have substantial results.
1. I think a lack of knowledge and a lack of money contribute equally to the problem of obesity, but even for those parents who know that fruits and vegetables are much healthier, it is still much easier to purchase hassle-free fast food. I believe that if families know more about eating healthy, it may increase their awareness and perhaps cut down slightly on the consumption of fast food, but will not cut it out altogether. Money is still the deciding factor for the majority of decisions that we make. Since these children are learning about the benefits of eating healthy, however, maybe one solution to the money issue is to switch out one or two unhealthy items with healthy foods, to ensure that a family stays within its budget but is also reaping some benefits from healthy foods. Also, fast food tends to come in larger quantities than is necessary for a filling meal, so it may be possible to switch out fast food for healthy food; some families need to learn about portion control anyways, so by buying healthy food, it forces them to think about what is necessary to keep them full.
ReplyDelete2. If the USDA sees that programs like this are actually effective, they may think more about implemented programs like this one across the country. With the help of local farmers and community support and fundraising, I think it is possible for many small town students to learn about healthy food. I also believe it may be easier to learn about healthy food in a small town environment compared to an urban setting because of the large amount of farmers and community agriculture in many smaller settings outside of big cities. Perhaps local farmers can set up programs with these schools in which students help the farmers and learn about agriculture (like in the movie "What's on your Plate?") and in return the farmers donate vegetables and fruits to these schools.