Speaking of corporate interests in kids' eating habits ...

Straight A’s, With a Burger as a Prize. Over at the New York Times, Stuart Elliott talks about a Florida arrangement in which McDonald's gives kids free food in exchange for good report cards. They send report cards home in paper sleeves with information and advertising about the McDonald's reward program. It's criticized as just one more way that corporations are advertising to children in order to build life-long "brand loyalty." Interestingly, only one parent had complained at the time the article was written. (They also mention that they had no complaints when Pizza Hut gave away free personal pan pizzas as reward for good grades in an earlier promotion.)

Nutritionists and others warn against using food as rewards, under the argument that obesity is often about emotional eating, or eating in response to the need for comfort or the idea that we've "earned it" and that these responses may be influenced by eating patterns learned in childhood.

Digesting the News at Gristmill

Ann Cooper, Berkeley Unified School District's "Renegade Lunch Lady", and Kate Adamick, a school food consultant based in New York, have teamed up to analyze the links between various food news items that have come up in the past week or so. They conclude that corporations have far too much power in the policy debates around school food. Their post is over at Gristmill, the green blog at Grist.org: The school-lunch dog fight: In the clash over school lunches, who's watching out for the kids?

While we all know that corporate interests are at play in school food practice, especially when it comes to "a la carte" or "competitive" foods sold outside the main school lunches, it is worth reading their opinions about the various groups at the table influencing decisionmaking.

It is nice to know that school food issues have reached the level of public awareness that it's regularly in the news and federal regulation over school food nutrition is controversial even among healthy or sustainable food advocates. The stronger the debate, the better the resulting policies!

British Targeting Pre-schoolers and Teens with Healthy Eating Initiatives

The Guardian reported recently that British programs are now beginning to focus on children under five years old to develop healthy eating habits early. Here's the story: A look at the kids' menu.

An earlier Observer article noted that the UK government is launching an advertising campaign linking healthy eating with success at sports, in an effort to increase student participation in school lunch programs: School meals campaign to target teenagers. This is in response to a study that reported that schools were serving healthier meals, but that in 19 of 26 schools, fewer students were eating school lunches because they didn't like them.

Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef frequently credited with starting Britain's school food revolution (though in fact change was already happening in various places), blames underfunding and slow implementation for the poor uptake of healthier school meals, saying that kitchen staff training and kitchen facilities have not been put into place as they should have been. Oliver blames government for dinners failure.

Efforts to Govern School Snack Standards at the Federal Level

New York Times writer Kim Severson has written an article about the Farm Bill Amendment to define standards for snacks and drinks sold in schools: Effort to Limit Junk Food in Schools Faces Hurdles. Even if the Farm Bill doesn't pass, or passes without the amendment addressing foods sold outside the lunch program, sponsors say they will push to get it passed in some other way. The measure is controversial in that some think it is a good starting place for improving food in schools, and others wanting stronger measures and fewer exemptions for things like sports drinks. One of the touchiest issues is this:

"Although states would not be able to pass stronger restrictions, individual school districts could."

In different places, the battle to improve school food happens at different levels of decisionmaking, often based on where the climate is friendliest for change. If state legislatures are ready to take a stand on school food, they may be the place to enact the strictest rules on healthy food standards. In many places, schools or school districts may be where progress is being made. So the limitation of state power will be more problematic in some places than others. Though, as noted in the article, school district decisionmaking may also be affected by federal guidelines:

“My little fights in school districts are just going to be harder and harder because they’ll say, Well, here are the federal guidelines,” said Dr. Susan Rubin of Chappaqua, N.Y., a nutritionist who helped found the Better School Food advocacy group.

Any thoughts about how this will affect your efforts at improving school food?

Student-Grown Produce in Connecticut Schools

Students in Bloomfield, Connecticut and the surrounding area are coming together to grow produce, raise chickens for eggs, and even raise tilapia fish for the school district's cafeterias. Tim Cipriano, the District's recently hired food services manager, worked with Joe Rodrigues at the Donald F. Harris Sr. Agri-Science & Technology Center to create an agriculture program that feeds students educationally and nutritionally. For more info, read Steven Goode's article Food For Students From Students in the online Hartford Courant.

Not About Schools, Specifically, But a Good Article on Whether Organic is Better For You

Carol Ness at the San Francisco Chronicle has written a great overview of where the current scientific studies fall on the nutritional quality of organic food compared to conventional, and the myriad of other factors that affect the nutritional content of the produce on your table. The article, Food Conscious: Is organic better? It depends, is not about schools, but it certainly ties in to debates about what constitutes healthy food--the goal for school lunches.

(Found via the excellent local and sustainable food issues website: The Ethicurean)

Good News on Healthy School Lunch Sales

University of Minnesota recently released a study that contradicts the commonly-held notion that serving healthier school meals will mean fewer students buy school lunch. According to an AP article Study: Kids Will Eat Healthy School Food , the study found that sales of school meals in Minnesota did not decline when healthier foods were served, and that healthier meals didn't have to cost more to produce.

Note: I have downloaded the journal article in pdf. Please let me know in comments or by email if you'd like more details.