Last week, the Parent Advisory Committee on which I serve met with Houston ISD Food Services/Aramark to share menu ideas and other suggestions to improve school food. In the coming days I’ll write about various issues discussed at that meeting which I think will be of interest to all parents, whether you live in Houston or elsewhere.
Today, however, I want to relate just one anecdote. I was speaking with a Food Services official about her attempts to come up with new, scratch-cooked items for our breakfast program. She’d hit upon the idea of oatmeal (real oatmeal, not instant) packaged with a separate cinnamon apple topping (cooked from scratch) and served with a mini muffin, all of which could be heated in the same ovens that are used to warm the other breakfast items. It was pretty creative solution for a breakfast program that’s now implemented via mobile carts instead of a cafeteria line.
There was just one problem: when the oatmeal was tested at a local elementary school, it was a complete flop. The school population in question was primarily Hispanic and apparently oatmeal isn’t commonly eaten in that community; the school’s principal actually called the official later that day to complain about the breakfast and the fact that children went hungry that morning.
Now, if you’re a parent you’ve no doubt heard the maxim that a child may need to be exposed to a new food many, many times before he or she will accept it. But when I asked this Food Services official how many times she’d be willing or able to reintroduce the oatmeal breakfast before declaring it a failure, she shook her head and said that the district simply can’t afford to repeatedly offer an item knowing that kids aren’t going to eat it.
There was, however, one bright spot in my conversation with this official. She told me that when they tried out other new items in that same school cafeteria (including broccoli with cheese, apple crisp with granola topping, a scratch chicken pot pie recipe, and whole wheat pasta with a scratch-made cacciatore sauce), she found that if she directly coaxed and motivated children to try them (and often it took a lot of coaxing), some would actually try the new foods and of those, a few actually said, “I like it. ”
It seems clear, then, that changing school food is only half the battle. Unless we can prepare a district of 200,000 students to understand why there’s a new food on their lunch tray and to get them over their fear of trying it, all of our best efforts at improving school menus will be declared a failure — with no second chances.
There are great farm-to-table groups like Houston’s Recipe for Success which have shown that when a child actually grows the spinach, he’s more likely to eat it. Unfortunately, though, such a hands-on, labor-intensive approach can’t possibly reach every child in a huge urban school district like ours. And while HISD currently has about 35 dietetic interns who will come into local schools to educate about new foods, they currently do so only upon request and on a relatively ad hoc basis.
So what’s the best approach? I know there must be people out there working on precisely this issue — I’m going to try to find out more, and I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Bettina Elias Siegel
Emily Page says
Look at the eco-warriors the schools have turned our kids into! 🙂 I hear stories routinely from parents saying that their children have really forced them to clean up their green act. What caused this? A HUGE, MASSIVE Education and Media onslaught aimed at this behavior coming THROUGHOUT THE DAY at the school. Everyone is conscious of it. Everyone is peer pressuring each other about it.
If we want the kids at ANY school to be healthier, it has to be a continuous, intensive assault to even come close to the Mickey D’s ads and craptastic fake “good for you” messages that they hear on ads, etc.
If people really want to fix this, it’s going to take fighting fire with fire. Media blitzes kids and harried parents who don’t understand even the small amount of nutritional info that I might.
What foods do the kids on iCarly eat? How about Hannah Montana? … or the Suite Life… or whatever.
Reality check. Kids are watching tons of TV. Those are the role models. Parents are freaking tired. How hard it is to fight both Madison Avenue and sugar-craving lunatic children!!
As a start, you will have to involve the ENTIRE school to integrate nutritional education into the classroom as much as recycling and green living is.
One school at a time. Probably one classroom at a time.
Flailing away and having the kids experience 5.5 minutes of a health food tossed at them by the school cafeteria is NOT going to change habits and certainly is going to lead to hungry kids.
Now pardon me while I go feed my kids some poptarts. 🙂
bettina elias siegel says
Amen to all that, Emily!
I feel like we’re getting close to the public support for that kind of massive educational campaign but we’re not there yet, and there are so many countervailing forces, starting with powerful food manufacturers/agricultural businesses and their lobbyists.
Sometimes I wonder if society needs to actually see the health effects of our current diet play out on our kids’ generation before it’s willing to invest the time — and money — needed to really turn things around. Pessimistic, I know . . .
Janet Poppendieck says
I recently visited a school in Kalamazoo, MI to talk with parents, the principal, activists and food service personnel, and in the course of our discussion, I heard a fascinating little story–a tale of two schools. In one elementary school, the principal has been working to improve school food for years. Last year, she made chocolate milk a debate topic, The kids took sides, researched the issue and conducted debates. When Chartwell’s, the food service provider withdrew chocolate milk from the menu, the kids adapted. Parents in another school heard about the change and asked for the same in their children’s school. When Chartwell’s withdrew the chocolate milk, milk consumption plunged and stayed low for weeks until Chartwell’s reinstated the chocolate milk. The point–we have to engage the children intellectually and emotionally in their own search for a healthy diet.
Short of the grow-it-yourself approach, cooking seems to have a similar salutary effect on kids’ willlingness to try new things. See the description of “cooking With Kids” in my book, “Free for All: Fixing School Food in America” (Univ of California Press, 2010), or check out “cookshops” via the web site of the Food Bank for New York City. Perhaps the dietetic interns can be more effectively organized and deployed.
Maybe we can enlist “adbusters” to do some counter-media to combat the distortions with which our children are flooded. I agree with Emily that it needs to be an all-out effort. I note that the World Health Organization has just recommended restricting food advertising aimed at children. Maybe we could find a way to tax it to generate some revenue for healthier school meals.
Keep put the good work, Houston.
bettina elias siegel says
Jan:
So glad to welcome you to The Lunch Tray!
As readers of the blog know, I am constantly recommending your book, “Free for All,” to any parent who really wants to get a handle on the current state of our school lunch system – how it got that way and how we can improve it. Please continue to visit and comment on the site!
Bettina
Kristin Hayles says
I completely agree with what is said above. Kids are smarter than many of us think. I learn this on a daily basis with my own two. I find that I get so much more out of them if they are involved and they understand the whys. Even my three-year-old is starting to understand why healthy food is important (slow process with her, but I stick with it). I think all too often adults enforce these rules on kids without any reason behind it. Sure, you can tell them prepared-food-from-scratch is healthy, so it is a better choice, but it sounds like it will take much more than that. Give a child a little respect and ownership, and they often make good choices. Perhaps the reason kids eat food they grow and prepare themselves is because they have ownership and they feel part of the process.
When I was a kid my public elementary school always had 4 fourth graders help prepare every meal. I remember that was a fantastic experience for me. It only scratches the surface though — it takes months, even years to change these kinds of habits, but if it is a cultural change, and one that is consistently reinforced, it will eventually take hold. I liken it to the culture change I saw in my own company when management started their safety campaign. Everyone rejected the new policies, classes, language at first, but day by day, everyone finally bought in and now if I goto a “safety day” there is a constant stream of suggestions and discussion surrounding safety. People even caution each other in the hallway to hold the hand rail. It will happen, if we just stick with it.
Andrea Georgsson says
Society has changed so much. Even chronically hungry kids turn up their noses. We have created a country of super-picky eaters, not to mention constant snackers, kids who eat in cars every day of the week and kids who never drink water. It all seems insurmountable sometimes.
Stephanie says
At a recent Food Service PAC meeting someone mentioned the idea of health and nutritional coaches on campus to create a movement, so to speak. The coach could be the PE teacher, or a parent, who would organize the older children in the school, creating a team. The team would receive health and nutrition lessons and do research. Then during lunch time they would be in the cafeteria encouraging younger children to make healthier choices and praising them for doing so.
As a parent of an elementary aged child, and having shared meals in the school cafeteria with my child’s class, on more than one occasion, this may actually work. When I am in the cafeteria, I encourage children to try that funny looking rice pilaf or a bite of fresh broccoli or corn on the cob. I encourage them to drink their milk. It really does not take a lot of coaxing, usually just an ask. Occasionally, I hear, oh, I don’t like that! I just ask if they could just take one bite to see if maybe they like this particular version, or I go into how they are growing and their taste buds are changing all the time and maybe now they might like it if they tried it… and usually they do.
So, maybe older peers can do a better job than a mom who is sitting at the table… maybe those older peers can be the campaign that counteracts the McD ads…
just a thought.
bettina elias siegel says
Stephanie: I think I had to leave the meeting before that was discussed. Peer-to-peer sounds like a fantastic approach. I need to get back with HISD for more details that I can share here. – Bettna
christa says
christa says
Here’s what I meant to leave: a link to the ted talk by a child prodigy who gives a talk on what adults can learn from kids.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/adora_svitak.html
bettina elias siegel says
Christa: Definitely want to check that out. Thank you for leaving the link. – Bettina
Mary Lawton says
The CATCH program that ran around HISD for a few years was a great program. It stands for Coordinated Approach to Children’s Health. Travis, my elementary school, was a CATCH school and our PE teacher headed up the activities. Our team was Angela the PE teacher, one parent (me), the cafeteria manager, and one teacher. We met each month, we had support and materials, we had great activities. The kids learned boatloads about diet and exercise. But then the CATCH money ran out, and it was over. I’d like to find out if it will be back any time soon…as I recall it was a private fund donated to many schools in HISD. That was a program that really, really worked.