Healthy Diet: Healthy Kids

by Dr. Richard Visser

You may already know enough about childhood obesity to take the positive steps needed to keep your kids healthy.

You're encouraging your children to get out there and play actively instead of watching TV or playing sedentary video games.

You've taught them why advertisements can't always be believed.

You've been saying no whenever they bug you for unhealthy food.

You're also trying to set a good example by eating only nutritious foods in front of them and being more active yourself.

But even when you limit the high-sugar, low-fiber foods you serve at home, your kids still eat junk food. Believe me, they do. It happens at school.

Unhealthy "goodies" and "treats" are available in 43 percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle and junior high schools, and 98 percent of senior high schools. Kids get junk from vending machines, school stores, or school snack bars.

Children don't always tell their parents when they have snacks, either because they know parents won't approve or because they lose track. The American Dietetic Association found, in their 2003 Family Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey, that children actually buy food from vending machines, snack bars, convenience stores, restaurants, and grocery stores about twice as often as their parents say they do, according to registered dietitian and ADA President Susan H. Laramee.

Surely there are rules to protect your kids and ensure that all food available at school is healthy, right? Wrong: The rules of commerce apply here. Schools depend on the money generated by food sales, and young consumers demand junk, thanks to advertising. Instead of removing temptation, these products find their way--legally--into your child's school via notorious pouring or serving contracts. Soft drink and snack companies buy exclusive rights to offer their products in almost 50 percent of school districts nationwide. And though the money goes to a good cause--funding school programs--the American Public Health Association states that soda contracts are "promoting the purchase and consumption of low-nutrient-dense beverages while children are captive in an environment that is dedicated to education."

Timing is working against some kids, too. For scheduling purposes, many must eat lunch as early as 10 a.m., so by 1 p.m. they're hungry again--and kids are hungry for foods with names they recognize, particularly since name-brand advertising reaches into schools via government-approved, school-broadcast programming.

For example, more than 7 million teens in middle schools and high schools across the country watch a daily 12-minute newscast called "Channel One." That's nearly 30 percent of teenagers in the U.S., according to the show's Web site. The broadcast not only airs two minutes of commercials but combines corporate sponsorship (e.g., Gatorade Player of the Year) with a Web site loaded with advertisement banners promoting--you guessed it--food, food, and more food.

Your kids consume about 40 percent of their total calories each day while at school, and you probably think most of those calories are healthy--from nice, hot, cafeteria-style servings of veggies and main entree ... but think again. Remember the business aspect: Meals are designed to appeal to your kids' taste for high-fat, high-sugar foods.

Many cafeterias around the country get their food delivered from massive institutional kitchens--agricultural surplus transformed into frozen meals of questionable quality--to be microwaved at the school. Many schools no longer have their own stoves, ovens, or even cooking utensils! Popular a la carte food items (like ice cream, cookies, hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato chips) are sold in the cafeteria alongside these defrosted disasters--tempting even kids who bring their own lunches.

The National School Lunch Program does have nutritional guidelines it must meet. Over a one-week period, school lunches must provide "one-third of the Recommended Dietary Allowances of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium and calories ... No more than 30 percent of calories can come from fat and less than 10 percent from saturated fat." These guidelines say nothing about how many total calories, and the number provided per meal can be astronomical, particularly when schools have contracts with fast-food companies.

It sounds bad, doesn't it? It might be, but there's hope. School districts around the country are beginning to realize the level of influence they have over kids' eating habits, physical activity levels, and overall weight status.

Commendably, many are banning sugary drinks and snacks, despite the initial drop in funds that this step causes. The first U.S. district to do so was Oakland, in 2002, and its ban on vending machine junk food resulted in a loss of about $650,000 in revenue each year. Yet this didn't stop others from adopting the same noble objectives. In Massachusetts and New York, districts have either banned or severely limited sweets. In Texas, kids swipe personalized electronic cards when purchasing lunch so the cashier is alerted if there's a forbidden sweet item on their tray. (Parents can track their kids' purchases on a Web site.)

Dr. Richard Visser recently completed clinical research on 10,000 children and the obesity pandemic in Latin America and the United States. He's the director of the Visser Wellness and Research Center in Aruba, as well as CEO of SimplyH, LLC and Simply Toddler, LLC in Los Angeles. Dr. Visser works worldwide to raise awareness of proper nutrition for healthy and fit toddlers and children.