Jamie Oliver TED Speech & School Lunch Links

I have heard snippets from Jamie Oliver's TED speech, but had never watched the whole thing. Jamie has his critics, but he is tackling a huge issue that has long term implications. Check out his speech below and you will NOT be disappointed.

Also, two blogs to point out, which I may have mentioned earlier. I follow both blogs through my Blogger account and my RSS feed.

Mrs. Q blogs over at http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/, and has built up an extensive following of readers. She has appeared (anonymously) on Good Morning America, and her blog chronicles her mission to eat school lunch every school day for a year. She is bringing a lot of attention to the need for change, and her pictures are always a treat! Featuring guest bloggers from a diversity of interests, this blog is a must see!

Ali, over at http://bravenewlunch.blogspot.com/, is a food service director in Massachusetts who calls herself "the next generation lunch lady." She brings her college education and chef experience to the lunch room in an attempt to improve the quality of school lunch. Read it and hear from someone on the front lines! Seeing as she is also from MA, maybe the future will see us collaborate with other teachers, school food service workers, and districts to help create change within our lunchrooms.

Here is Jamie Oliver's speech:

A Better Action Plan

As part of my brief commentary on school lunches, I came up with a quick, four step game plan for people who wish to begin creating change within their school districts. I didn't think too much about it (although you could argue a lot has to do with common sense) and I'm not an expert...yet. I knew someone out there with a few letters after their name (M.D., R.D., PhD, etc) would have something, I just needed to find it.

So, in reading the comments on Mrs. Q's blog I came across a comment by the founder of Better School Food, Susan Rubin (she's an expert). Her organization has an action plan with many of the similar concepts as the one I created. I read it, liked it, and now I want you to read it too!

Check out the action plan here, and put it to work!!

On a side note, I'm not really digging the color scheme of this blog anymore. I'm going to try to spice it up soon. I've been receiving a lot of hits from Google searches (30+ a week), and I'm also going to try to get back to why I started this in the first place: spreading teaching ideas to other health teachers. My formative assessment post, HIV simulation post, and ATOD activities are my most frequently viewed pages. If you see something and you like it, please post a comment!! I know there's almost 300 of you who have been reading! :)

School Lunches: The Saga Continues...

Ah, school lunches. All of a sudden, everyone is talking about them. I'm starting nutrition with my sixth graders this week, so I'll post how I'm incorporating this into our curriculum at a later date. For now, I'm pretty positive that school lunch is the teenage pregnancy of 2010, as far as hot health topics go. And while there was a lot of hype in in 08-09 about teenage pregnancy (specifically after what happened in Gloucester) it seems like the dialogue on that issue has faded. It did resurface a little bit during the health care debate, but the media let that fade too. Now, something new has surfaced.

School nutrition is even appearing in commercials! The American Beverage Association recently aired a commercial patting themselves on the back for eliminating full calorie soft drinks from schools across the country. Full calorie soft drinks? Are people still really concerned only with calories? What about sugar? What about high fructose corn syrup? Why should we be satisfied with less-calorie drinks in our schools when they are still serving drinks loaded with other junk?!? I laughed at this commercial. Way to go, corporate America.

And now, the media blitz of our new hot topic. I've posted on this before, and I'm not the only one. Mrs. Q is chronicling her experience eating only school lunches on her blog, Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do! Then there are the countless news articles that have appeared recently. USA Today has an ongoing section on school lunch safety, which is eye opening in itself: many cafeterias are not passing health and safety inspections, food of a poor quality is making its way onto the trays of students, etc. This week an article appeared in the Boston Globe about struggling families and their reliance on school lunches. This effect is two fold: one being on the students eating the lunches, and two being on the districts who have to serve them without a reimbursement rate that is inadequate. For a comprehensive round up of what's going on in the news relating to school lunches, check out the school lunch roundup posted on Mrs. Q's blog by Brandon Smith.

Because my blog is rather young, there have only been a few posts about school lunches. This will definitely be an ongoing discussion (I have more posts in draft mode) and I hope this conversation continues. It's being hit from many angles: the First Lady, Jamie Oliver, national newspapers, and young, blogging teachers, to name a few.

There seems to be a general outrage about nutrition, but not much is being done. We can watch Jamie Oliver (I have to catch up on Hulu) all we want, but will we join him? While getting a conversation started is the first step (and a critical one!), action is what is needed. What can concerned parents do in their own communities? Here's my own list that I created, as someone with no expert experience in this type of situations. This is only from my head, and I thought about it over the last day or so. Let me know what you think! Here it is:

1. Organize. A group of fired up parents can do a lot to get something within school districts changed! If you do not like what your child is being served, find others who feel the same way you do. Talk with the administrators and teachers in your district. Most principals I know will at least hear you out, even if they can't (for whatever reason: money, etc) change anything immediately. Plan some meetings, get together, and make a game plan. It's better to have too many ideas than none at all!

2. Connect. Connect with local school officials. Tell them you want to work with them, not against them, in helping create more healthy meals for the student body, aka your kids. Reach out to local community organizations: garden clubs, health departments, community coalitions, etc. Nothing around like that? Start one! Social media has made it very simple to connect with others through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook group/fan pages, etc. There's no need to reinvent the wheel; many people have made changes to school lunches in their districts. Connect with these people and see what worked for them! Contact local representatives or other government officials and see if they can help you, too.

3. Research. Read, read, read about food and academic performance! Read articles like this one describing how one district makes fresh breakfasts, from scratch, for their students everyday. Make sure you research data on topics such as the impact of breakfast on academics (warning: company sponsored website), how food service professionals expand their breakfast offerings and be sure to find up to date information from reliable research publications.

4. Model. Want your kids to eat healthy? Eat healthy too! Many people complain about not having enough family time together, but cooking a homemade meal is one of the easiest ways to accomplish two things at once: family social time and healthy eating. My friend Matt has said this for a long time, and I'm in agreement. Realistically, most people can't eat only fresh, unprocessed foods. However, you can be aware of every food item you put into your body, and YOU can make healthy choices.

Also, please realize that schools are held to budgetary constrictions, and a lot of schools simply don't have the facilities to handle a lot of freshly prepared meals. Both are discussed in my post about what Anthony Geraci has done with the food being served in the Baltimore public schools.

Personally, one of my physical education colleagues and me and teaming up to revamp the bulletin boards in our school cafeteria to highlight different information about nutrition. We're still in the process of figuring out logistics, but once we get rolling I'll be sure to post about it, with pictures too.

Will school lunches change? I hope something about them changes. Our children are our future and if we want to have a healthy population in the future, we cannot continue on the road we are on.

As always, please e-mail me with questions, comments, or concerns.

NOTE: Michelle Obama has launched a contest called Apps for Healthy Kids. The goal is to create "innovative, fun and engaging software tools and games that encourage children directly or through their parents to make more nutritious food choices or be more physically active." Check it out, and if you're knowledgeable about that sort of thing, enter the contest!

Food Revolution!

I just watched the first episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on Hulu. I'm hooked!

I had no idea this show was going to happen, and I'm glad that school lunches are receiving some media attention. It's very hard to change how school lunches are served, but Jamie seems like the man for the job, filled with passion and a firm resolve to help people change. But, as we know from what's happening in Baltimore, change IS possible if you have the tools, desire, and manpower to accomplish it. On a side note, this is the second time I've seen the word "revolution" associated with school lunches; the first was a company mentioned in an earlier blog post of mine.

I just sent this link to my friend Matt Germain. If Jamie Oliver, Jack Lalanne, and Matt all teamed up, this problem would be solved!

NY Times Article: Making Healthy Lunch, and Making It a Cause

Short post today.

A few days ago an article appeared in The New York Times highlighting a company in California called Revolution Foods.

Revolution Foods seek to switch the paradigm of school lunches into healthy, bountiful servings of quality food (and fuel) for students. The company entered the market at the right time around 2005; in recent years, attempts to revamp school lunch have gained support from Arnold Schwarzenegger (locally in California, where Revolution Foods is based) and Michelle Obama.

Revolution Foods has partnered with the chain Whole Foods, and their lunches contain no high fructose corn syrup. They also make foods available for those who brown bag their lunches. I'd continue on, but the article has all the information you'll need. For more information on Revolution Foods, check out the article here.

Now that companies are entering this market, will the government step up its support of changing school lunches for the better? Time will tell.

Jay Mathews Says PE Is a Bad Idea

I enjoy reading a blog entitled, "Class Struggle" by Jay Mathews of the Washington Post. It mainly deals with issues in the DC area, but his posts often have implications beyond DC. I like a lot of his writing and his conversations with blog readers via his comments section. He is not afraid to push buttons and talk about equality (or the lack of) in education, and the fact that he actually responds to readers gives him big points in my book. When I saw Mathews critique the recently introduced Healthy Schools Act in Washington, DC schools, alarm bells went off. Maybe it's the Springfield undergrad in me resurfacing, but anytime anyone tries to say physical education or health education are not important, I get fired up.

Before I begin, I would encourage you to read the article and the comments written from readers and Mathews himself. There is a lot of great insight going on, and Mathews does respond, keeping a relatively open mind and providing clarifying points when needed. He even admits when he makes a bad statement or compliments someone who proves him wrong.

The Healthy Schools Act would require, as Mathews writes, the following: "The new bill would require every public school student in kindergarten through fifth grade to have 150 minutes of P.E. (30 minutes a day). Sixth- through eighth-graders would be required to take 225 minutes (45 a day)."

These new physical education guidelines fit in with the guidelines set by the American Heart Association for most healthy people of at least 30 minutes of physical activity most days of the week. The 150 minutes per week also fits the guidelines set by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. AAHPERD consists of professionals involved in the fields of health education, physical education, fitness, recreation, sports and coaching, etc. The organization is a huge advocate for anything promoting health and fitness, and a great organization to be involved in.

Mathews argues that DC school children need to spend more time in the classroom due to underachieving test scores. However, physical education is important in learning. As pointed out on Ed Burke's The Slow Cook, many studies have been done showing that physical education classes can improve academic performance. This was drilled into our heads at Springfield as a way to advocate for our profession as physical or health educators. I won't repeat the stats from the other blog, but the information provided by Ed Burke is spot on.

The schools also provide a location for students to work out in gym class. Students living in urban areas may have difficulty finding space to play/exercise in or may not have the resources needed for programs that their suburban counterparts enjoy. The food section of the bill would serve local fruits and vegetables to elementary school students one to three times a week, depending on the season. Why is this a bad thing? This saves in fuel costs, contributes to the local economy, and will taste better too.

I'm not sure if Mathews understands the role of the coordinated school health program (CSHP) in education today. For basic information on the CSHP, see an earlier post I wrote last year. Ideally, a CSHP contains multiple parts working in conjunction with each other in order to help maintain healthy young people. Two critical portions of this model, physical education and food services, are positively affected by the proposed Healthy Schools Act. Hopefully, the other components are active in the DC schools as well.

Has Mathews spent time in a classroom with middle school students who simply need time to run around and burn off some energy? It can be very hard to control kids who have no outlet for their energy. I would prefer an odiferous, post-phys. ed class any day of the week over a class that has too much energy to handle. They're not focused if they have built up energy. I strive to set an example by my own physical activity, and I know in my district, the kids would be very upset if their physical education classes were cut.

Much of education has nothing to do with what students learn in classes they may not use in their entire life. This is the importance of physical education and health education: providing tools for a lifetime of healthy living. The long term, positive effects of this is for another post, but they are numerous.

My next post will have something to do with the classroom. Check back within the week!

As always, please leave comments telling me what you think. I, like Mathews, want to hear the whole side of the story.