On any given school day, even in the middle of a cold, snowy winter, the irresistible aroma of soup made from farm-fresh vegetables fills school hallways and administrative offices in the Honeoye Falls-Lima Central School District. Located 13 miles south of Rochester, N.Y., this district of about 2,400 students was an early adopter of efforts to bring healthier food options to school cafeterias. In 2006, well before First Lady Michelle Obama turned a spotlight on the health and wellness of today's youth, the district formed a food service advisory committee to revamp the lunch menu because parents and community members "were concerned about what was being served in the cafeterias," says Renée Williams, the district's assistant superintendent for instruction.
Then, in 2009, Williams hired a food services director who raised the bar even higher. The new director worked closely with local farmers to secure low-cost fresh produce. She helped students tend their own school-based vegetable gardens and convinced the district to invest in food dehydrators so that the riches of a summer harvest could be reconstituted in a January stew.
The director also coached the food services staff, helping them develop questioning techniques that guide kids to make healthier food choices. Instead of ordering a child to get a vegetable, for example, the cashier might ask, "What is missing from your plate?" If a student selects a sugary snack, the question becomes, "What else could you eat?"
"The tone around the school cafeteria has changed; it's become so positive as the food services staff interacts more with our students," says Williams.
One additional benefit of being an early adopter: the district needed only to make "a few little tweaks" when regulations stemming from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) were issued.
Regulations Pose Challenges
For every Honeoye Falls-Lima Central School District, however, many more have found it challenging to implement those regulations. It's especially challenging because
- To qualify for cash subsidies from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), participating schools must provide meals that meet federal dietary standards and they must offer free or reduced-price lunches.
- New HHFKA dietary standards require schools to offer foods that are not typically popular with students. Students must take at least one fruit or vegetable per meal, for example, and at least half of all grains served at lunch must be whole-grain rich. As a result, fewer students—to the tune of 1 million per day, according to the School Nutrition Association (SNA)—are buying a school lunch.
When students don't buy meals, especially full-priced ones, the self-sustaining school lunch program takes a financial hit, explains Patricia Montague, the SNA's chief executive officer. The problem becomes especially acute when USDA subsidies simply don't cover increases in the number of free lunches served.
One proposed solution is for the USDA to allow for more flexibility, says Montague. For instance, the SNA suggests that schools continue to be allowed to offer foods made with refined grains—such as flour tortillas and white rice—in addition to whole-grain foods. Students should also be allowed to skip the fruit or vegetables and be given more time to adjust to lower-sodium foods.
"There is a teaching curve, a learning curve, and an eating curve," notes Cathy Schuchart, senior vice president of child nutrition and policy at the SNA. "Some dietary changes require the palate to adjust. It's a process."
Providing more flexibility may also reduce waste. "We hear about and see photographs of food that is thrown out because students either don't want it or don't like it, and that's upsetting," says Montague. Although she asserts that SNA members have and will continue to offer products that reflect healthier standards, Montague notes that "change doesn't happen overnight."
Society, she adds, is also not keeping pace with the USDA's requirements. "There aren't a lot of us eating whole-wheat pasta—not in our homes, not in restaurants; how can we expect schools to impose that change on kids?"
Changing Attitudes through Education
How can we not expect schools to intervene? That's what Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado, wonders. Cooper, who thinks the USDA guidelines are "a great start" but not stringent enough, finds the SNA positions to be "absolutely ludicrous."
She agrees that "you can't expect kids who think that chicken nuggets are food to think broccoli is candy." Still, Cooper says, that doesn't mean schools shouldn't make changes in the foods they offer students. Rather than acquiesce to finicky eaters, educate them. "Why give kids unhealthy options? We don't teach kids slang; we teach them English," says Cooper. "Why would you teach kids junk food?"
Courtney Leeds, cofounder of Schoolyard Farms, agrees. After working for many years in the corporate sector, Leeds found a greater purpose in gardening. When she observed that many children were "disconnected from the food system," she answered an even greater calling to help children "understand where food comes from and how to grow it."
Leeds assumed management of an existing school garden constructed by a parent and teacher at Candy Lane Elementary School in Portland, Ore. Each week, students come to the garden, which has expanded into a large farm, to learn how concepts like photosynthesis and the nitrogen cycle actually work in nature. Students watch their food grow, and Leeds has seen how the experience can "really change their attitudes about fruits and vegetables," taking them from squeamish to adventurous. In fact, the question Leeds most often gets from her young charges is "When do we get to eat this?"
Education should also extend to parents, says Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations at the SNA. Change has to happen at home if it is to happen at school, she observes, so as part of its parent outreach program, the SNA developed an online resource called Tray Talk. Ideally, when armed with such information, parents can have crucial conversations about nutrition with their children, who will then make healthier choices, Pratt-Heavner says.
A Better Solution?
Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, thinks that expectation is naive. "Initially, I believed that education made the difference," he says. He thought that one could "reframe" a person's mind and that would lead to the desired eating behaviors. His research over the last 20 years has led to a different conclusion, however—that changing our environments can be far more effective than education.
According to Wansink, the typical person makes more decisions about food than he realizes. Take breakfast, for instance. Most people think that their choice of cereal is the single decision they make about their morning meals, "but there are so many more," including how much cereal to pour, how much milk to use, and whether to have a second helping. "The typical person makes at least 30 decisions before they finish breakfast," and these subconscious choices "are being influenced by the stuff around him," Wansink says. We all engage in this "mindless eating," but if environments are controlled effectively, "we can mindlessly eat more healthy foods" rather than subconsciously consuming unhealthy ones.
Wansink has used his research to reform school lunchrooms. "We've developed what we call the Smarter Lunchroom Self-Assessment Scorecard," which can help keep schools on track. "The checklist is huge, but our intent when we started off with this was to ask, 'How can we transform schools for less than $50?'," says Wansink. Another criterion: all the recommendations have to be revenue-neutral or revenue-positive for the school.
Some of the changes Wansink recommends are simple, such as placing fruit in bowls set close to the cash register, giving vegetables mouth-watering names like "succulent summer corn," or even just moving white milk in front of flavored milk. These small, low- to no-cost changes have proven successful in "nudging" children toward choosing healthier food.
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School Nutrition Resources
The USDA has many resources to help schools align with federal dietary guidelines. Start your exploration at www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/child-nutrition-programs. Districts and schools interested in joining the Farm to School movement can review a series of informational webinars at www.fns.usda.gov/farmtoschool/webinars and download a new guide on procuring local foods for school meals at www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/F2S_Procuring_Local_Foods_Child_Nutrition_Prog_Guide.pdf.
For a wealth of information, including tips on how to use social media to promote school nutrition programs and healthy school meals, visit www.schoolnutrition.org and click on the "Resource Center" tab.
The group has also developed Tray Talk, a website where parents can go to learn about school meals. A "Get the Facts" tab features answers to questions that many parents have, such as "Who[m] should I contact with questions/concerns about my child's school cafeteria menu?" and "Are school meals nutritious?"
Go to www.chefann.com to learn more about the school nutrition projects that have captured Ann Cooper's time and effort, including Lunch Lessons LLC, which helps schools make the systemic changes necessary to sustain school lunch program reforms.
How does your school stack up? Find out by visiting www.smarterlunchrooms.org to download the Smarter Lunchroom Self-Assessment Scorecard and other resources developed by the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Program.