Despite the small fortune she pays to send her children to the private Sewickley Academy, Rives Yost gives its food service a failing grade.
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Lindsay Wissinger of Metz and Associates talks to Marshall Middle School sixth-graders about healthful nutrition. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette) |
"It's abysmal," said Yost of Sewickley. "White cake with gobs of ice cream. Big greasy cookies. French fries. It has always perplexed me that the academy can't bring the quality of its food service up to the level of everything else. They sell the kids what the kids want to eat."
Yost is one of several local parents, as well as representatives from local school food service companies, planning to attend a presentation Feb. 8 by Antonia Demas, a Cornell University-trained nutritionist who is trying to change children's eating habits by encouraging schools to take the lead.
Demas, who directs the nonprofit Food Studies Institute in New York, says schools can obtain government grains and legumes as well as surplus dairy and meat, and they need to make nutrition as critical a part of the curriculum as other sciences.
"If [nutrition is] taught the right way -- hands on -- kids get excited" about trying new foods, said Demas, who has created a multicultural program offered in 100 schools nationwide.
"Food should be a sensory experience, a joy, a celebration."
Also attending her talk will be representatives from Metz and Associates, a Luzerne County company that provides meals to 60,000 students in Western Pennsylvania, including those at Sewickley and St. Edmund's academies, Seton-LaSalle High School and North Allegheny, Mt. Lebanon, Elizabeth-Forward, Burrell, Keystone Oaks, New Brighton and Erie school districts.
Metz does try to cater to students' tastes, but also must meet USDA standards, said Kathy Gonzalez, Metz nutrition and education director.
In her work, Demas has found that children are living on junk food, don't eat dinner with their parents and are experiencing such health consequences as constipation and behavior problems because of poor eating habits. Along with obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease among children also are on the rise.
"The USDA, which subsidizes school menus, shows that fewer than 2 percent of kids is eating the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables each day," she said.
Bill Lauff, North Allegheny School District's Metz food services director, and his staff have their own program aimed at teaching good eating habits to elementary and middle school students. He does what he can with the food the government provides.
"I boil ground meat to get rid of the fat. The kids don't even know that. We also bake our french fries. That they notice because they're used to McDonald's."
But Demas said schools aren't taking advantage of government grains, beans and other plant-based products that are naturals for ethnic dishes that can make food more interesting and healthier.
"Schools have to step in areas where they never would have ventured before."
Lauff welcomes these ideas. "Most kids' idea of vegetarian is a ham and cheese sandwich without the ham," he mused. "When we tried garden burgers, we sold nine out of 1,400," he said. "I'd love to get some of the surplus Antonia is talking about."
About 20 percent of Lauff's $2 million annual budget comes from government subsidies, which amounts to 28 cents on a whole meal that costs a child $1.65. In free lunch programs, a meal costs the government $2.37. Food services find a la carte items, such as the french fries and pizza, far more profitable than whole meals.
Messages about food don't come just from the lunchroom. Deborah Gouge of Sewickley, whose children attend Quaker Valley School District, has been concerned about the foods they prepared in its Family & Consumer Sciences classes (a modern home economics) in the middle and high schools: Rice Krispies treats and Dirt (a dessert of Oreo cookie crumbs, pudding and Gummi worms).
Yost and other Sewickley Academy parents have complained about the lunches.
"The accountant thinks the food service is wonderful," she said. "And the soda machines make a lot of money for the athletic department. It paid for a new scoreboard. It seems schools are compromising our kids' well-being in order to turn a profit."
Home-packed lunches are sometimes bigger dietary disasters.
"I watched one boy bring two Hostess Snowballs and a can of Coke to school every day for two years," Lauff said. "The typical lunch is a white bread sandwich with turkey or cheese and a piece of fruit, which they end up throwing away."
All the more reason why schools need to take charge, Demas said.
"If we are to get kids excited about eating foods they once hated, we have to reach people who are clueless and get them to take charge."
Deborah Weisberg is a free-lance writer who covers health issues.
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