In late March, three members of the RSU school nutrition team took a trip to Washington DC to share their success. They brought with them the message that meeting current school nutrition guidelines, and getting students excited about healthy eating, is challenging but possible.
The PEW Charitable Trust, in
collaboration with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, reached out to
schools in specific states who were meeting the new, more rigid guidelines with
success. They asked teams from these states to come and share their stories
with policymakers in Washington as they look toward reauthorizing the Healthy,
Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Jeanne Reilly, the director of school
nutrition; Eliza Adams, a health teacher; and chef and School Nutrition and
Wellness Coordinator Samantha Cowens-Gasbarro joined a project manager from the
Let’s Go program and a kitchen manager from New Sweden, Maine to make the trip.
“We went as a team and we were able to tell our story to people on Capitol Hill
about what has it taken for us to be successful,” said Reilly.
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines,
which changed under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, have been met
with bad press that says kids are refusing to eat school lunch, participation
has dropped, and too much food is ending up in the trash. But Reilly said the
experience in RSU14 has been different. “In the last several years since the Healthy
Hunger-Free Kids Act, we’ve shown more students eating lunch, not less and less,”
she said. The goal of the PEW Charitable Trust was to show that districts can
be successful with these guidelines, to counteract a push to roll these regulations
back.
Just after the trip, Reilly said, Senator
John Hoeven from North Dakota introduced the Healthy School Meals Flexibility
Act, which would provide flexibility to schools in their compliance with the
USDA requirements, specifically addressing the whole grain and sodium
requirements. The School Nutrition Association has endorsed this bill and
released a position paper asking for both changes in the requirements and more
funding. The requested changes would bring whole grain rich requirements back
to 50 percent rather than the current 100 percent, allow schools to decide
whether or not to require students to take a serving of fruit or vegetable, and
suspend the implementation of lower sodium targets.
One of the goals of the trip, according
to Reilly, was to show legislators that the guidelines can be followed
successfully. “If we roll the standards back, what is the message?” Reilly asked,
adding that she’d rather stick with it and gradually turn the tide towards
children becoming enthusiastic about healthy eating. “We’re educating them and
they are learning that healthy food can be tasty and delicious and exciting and
fun, too.”
Cowens-Gasbarro
said that the DC trip was an opportunity to promote the idea that through hard
work, dedication and keeping real, fresh foods in schools, RSU14 has been able
to have a successful school nutrition program.
Reilly acknowledged that meeting the
guidelines isn’t easy. “It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of engagement,
but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the process,” she said. Because RSU14 has
been meeting the standards for longer than they have been required, these
standards have become the norm in the district. In five years’ time, Reilly
said, students won’t know anything different. “To go backwards would seem
counterproductive,” she said.
Cowens-Gasbarro said elementary students
are happy to see fresh fruits and vegetables included with their meal. “It is at this age that we are really
trying to teach and create lifelong healthy eating habits by exposing them to a
variety of fresh fruits and vegetables,” she said. She added that she believes
keeping the requirement in place is important because for some students, school
lunch is their only exposure to fresh fruits and vegetables.
Doing school nutrition the right way
means spending more money, and districts are not fully funded to meet the new
standards, which can be a big challenge. Part of the message the group brought
to Washington was that the standards can be met, but it takes more staff, more
funding and better support for struggling districts to make a difference.
RSU14 sees students get excited about
healthy foods through a variety of innovative programs and initiatives. These
include kitchen staff cooking meals from scratch, offering taste testing in
classrooms and the cafeteria, and educating students on nutrition in health
classes. Programs like their “eating through the alphabet,” where students
tried fruits or vegetables from A to Z, add a fun element to serving healthy
lunches.
“What Jeanne and Samantha are doing for the school nutrition
program at RSU14 is so positive, they
are worthy of being an outstanding example of success,” said Adams. “Our
student participation in the school lunch program is up 20 to 30 percent based
on the creative and delicious foods offered, and all foods meet the
guidelines.”
Their model of including students in the
process makes both parents and students more trusting of the program and more willing to try the new
and different foods offered said Cowens-Gasbarro. “Asking for their feedback
and recommendations, as well as explaining how the school nutrition program
works, has really helped them to feel as though they are part of the changes
and more accepting of everything we are trying to accomplish in our school
nutrition program,” she said.
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