High School Cafeterias Working to Get Healthy

By Hugh C. McBride

If the words "school lunch" summon little more than images of greasy pizzas or memories of "Mystery Meat Mondays," there's a good chance you haven't stepped inside a cafeteria for quite some time.

In response to student demands, community awareness campaigns, and federal guidelines, schools across the country are taking steps to promote healthy nutrition and limit students' exposure to less-than-wholesome alternatives. Workers wheeling deep fryers and soda machines out the door are (figuratively, at least) crossing paths with executive chefs and corporate dieticians - who have been invited in to ensure that districts' offerings are both healthy enough to meet the federal mandates and enticing enough to actually get eaten.

As any parent who has tried to convince a child to finish her spinach can attest, the admonishment to "do it because it's good for you" rarely overrides the signals being sent by the potential eater's taste buds. Thus, schools' renewed focus on nutrition doesn't mean that student favorites like cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets have gone the way of the dunce cap. But the odds are improving that the burgers might be of the veggie variety, and those nuggets are much more likely to be baked instead of fried.

PLANNING FOR WELLNESS

Though student nutrition has received reinvigorated legislative attention in recent years, the government has been keeping its eye - and exerting its influence - on students' eating habits for more than six decades.

Federally subsidized free or reduced-cost lunches have been around since 1946, when President Harry Truman signed the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Program Act into law. Twenty years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the Child Nutrition Act, which extended federal funding to, among other expenditures, school breakfast programs and non-food purchases such as equipment. At the signing ceremony, Johnson remarked that "good nutrition is essential to good learning."

The government exercises its influence over school nutrition programs by making adherence to federal guidelines a condition of receiving continued funding for breakfast, lunch, and other nutrition-related programs. The last time the School Lunch and Child Nutrition laws were renewed, in 2004, Congress added an amendment requiring all districts to establish school wellness plans that include the following components:

• Goals for nutrition, physical activity, and school-based activities to promote wellness.
  
• Nutrition guidelines for all schools that focus on promoting student health and reducing childhood obesity.
• 
  The involvement of parents, students, and a range of school personnel in the development of the wellness plan.
• 
  The development of a procedure for ensuring the implementation of the school's wellness plan.
  

MEETING THE NUTRITION MANDATE

At a time of increased concern over the prevalence of childhood obesity, the federal wellness mandate dovetailed with community-based calls for better nutrition education and healthier lunch options in the nation's schools.

Examples of efforts to improve students' eating habits (some enacted before the federal requirements were issued, some put into place afterward) include the following:

• Candy bars, fried chips and other junk foods have been banned from on-campus vending machines in the Los Angeles Unified School District since July 1, 2004 (six months after a similar prohibition on soda went into effect in the district).
• The New York City Department of Education's SchoolFood department, which feeds more than one million students in the nation's largest school district, has implemented a number of nutritional upgrades, including eliminating artificial colors and sweeteners, shifting from white bread to whole wheat, and offering only skim or one-percent milk. Among the district's nutritional awareness efforts is a 15-page document on its website that lists nutritional information for all food served in its cafeterias - all of which fall under the guidance of the district's executive chef.
• Health-minded students at Grady High School in Atlanta, Georgia, convinced the school to add one of the nation's first vegetarian-only lunch lines to its cafeteria operation. According to an Associated Press article posted on the MSNBC website, Grady High's veggie line now attracts up to one-third of the school's 1,200 students - a fact made more significant with the knowledge that, on average, only one in five Atlanta students eats school-made lunches each day.

S
ERVING SUBSTANCE WITH A SIDE OF STYLE

Regardless of the efforts schools put into nutritional awareness, no wellness program can be deemed a success without significant student participation. (In other words, district dieticians and other food service personnel are being charged not only with leading their proverbial horses to healthier water, but also making them drink it.)

Thus, in an increasing number cafeterias across the country, the menu isn't the only thing that's getting an upgrade.

Carolina Lobo, vice president of marketing for Aramark School Support Services (which provides food service programs to more than 400 U.S. school districts) told School Administrator magazine that her organization designs creative cafeteria setups because "for kids [lunch isn't] about food, it's about hanging out with friends ... The idea is to give them a reason to come in and try something healthy."

Among the distinctive aspects of Aramark-run cafeterias are the "U.B.U. Lounge," which features laid-back comforts, intense graphics, and modern music aimed to attract and impress high school students, and "The 12 Spot," a similar concept geared toward students in grades six to eight.

But enhanced lunchtime atmospheres aren't limited to privately serviced cafeterias. Rialto, California's Eisenhower High School recently spent $3 million to renovate its cafeteria - a project that included replacing its standard-issue long, rectangular lunch tables with restaurant-style booths and cafe-like, long-legged circular tables and stools.

Now closer in appearance to a food court than a cafeteria, the modernized, multi-colored EHS facility features buffet lines organized by food types as well as a salad bar. As a result of the renovation, Principal Reginald Thompkins told the San Bernardino Press-Enterprise, student use of the facility has increased dramatically. "Kids fight to get in here," he said. "Right away, we saw a difference."

EVALUATING THE EFFORT

Though many schools are offering healthier alternatives in more inviting environments, groups such as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine argue that the nation's education system has a long way to go in the battle against poor nutrition. At the core of the PCRM's Healthy School Lunches Campaign is the following belief, expressed on the main page of the group's website:

Menus in most school lunch programs are too high in saturated fat and cholesterol and too low in fiber- and nutrient-rich fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes (see PCRM's School Lunch Report). Major changes are needed to encourage the health of the nation's youth and to reverse the growing trends of obesity, early-onset diabetes, and hypertension, among other chronic diseases, in children and teens.

The PCRM, which sites reform of the nation's nutrition policy as a key component of its preventive medicine initiative, annually rates the food-service operations of the nation's largest school districts. The group evaluates districts' performance in three categories: Obesity and Chronic Disease Prevention; Health Promotion and Nutrition Adequacy; and Nutrition Initiatives.

On the organization's 2007 report card, Florida's Pinellas County Schools received the top score (94 out of 100), while the St. Louis (Missouri) Public Schools brought up the rear with a score of 53.

ENCOURAGING EDUCATED EATERS

Regardless of the types of food a cafeteria contains - or the flash and flair with which it serves its meals - the nutritional value of school lunches are ultimately determined by what the students opt to eat. Healthy selections offered in inviting environments increase the odds that more students will make nutritionally sound choices, but the final responsibility comes down to each individual.

Parents can take a number of steps to prepare their children to make good lunchtime decisions:

• Eat a healthy breakfast with your child. Starting the day in a nutritionally sound way is a great habit to instill.
  
• Preview the school's lunch menu with your child. Point out the healthier selections and discuss which options are best avoided.
  
• Practice good nutrition at home. Keeping healthy snacks available and eating balanced meals with your child are two ways to show him that when it comes to nutrition, you're in it for the long run - together.   
  

References

"High school opens vegetarian lunch line." Associated Press, June 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10777174. Accessed May 5, 2008.