Lunch for Life ProgramSince we began our journey more than five years ago, Children’s Health Foundation has spent $1.016 million on research, development and recommendations for our Lunch for Life Program. This program is currently being piloted in Colorado’s Garfield RE-2 school district. In just a few short months teachers, principals, and administrators have seen significant changes in the students’ excitement about learning, an improvement in their behavior, and an enthusiasm about eating school lunch.
Childhood obesity in the U.S. has doubled from 15% in the 1970s to nearly 30% today. In 2000 the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that obesity was rapidly overtaking tobacco as the leading cause of preventable deaths. Pediatrics Journal recently reported that more than 20% of the nearly 21 million American children ages 10-14 years will become overweight or obese within the next two years.
We must transform the way we feed our children by providing them with the tools that will help them make educated, nutritious food choices throughout their lives.
Children's Health Foundation believes that school districts have a critical responsibility to promote healthy, nutritious eating habits. In 2006 we sponsored a landmark study “The State of Nutrition and Physical Activity in Colorado Schools: Changing the School Culture by Understanding the Facts,” which evaluated the nutrition environments of 20 rural Colorado schools. The findings revealed that students consume an astonishing amount of junk food and nonnutritive foods throughout the course of a school day. For example:
- At one high school the most common breakfast sold was a doughnut and a soda.
- Junk foods were available to students throughout the day at 80% of schools.
- The most common items available outside school meals included ice cream, snack chips, candy, soft drinks, pizza, nachos, and French fries.
- Elementary students received only 5 hours of nutrition education per year.
Following these assessments, Children's Health Foundation created a set of recommendations for schools to reform their food culture via healthy lunches that focus on wholesome, made-from-scratch meals. The recommendations included:
- Eliminating processed foods
- Introducing salad bars to all elementary schools
- Removing a la carte items
- Eliminating all products with trans fats and high fructose corn syrup
- Replacing canned fruits and vegetables with fresh
- Cooking from scratch
- Increasing the use of whole grains
- Replacing iceberg lettuce with mixed greens
“We have seen a marked decrease in the behavioral problems we used to see during lunch recess and the afternoon slump,’” notes Desha Bierbaum, Principal of Wamsley Elementary School in New Castle, Colorado. “Healthy lunches seem to make a big difference in their concentration and attitude.”
The success of the Lunch for Life Program in an ethnically diverse, rural school district makes it a model example for schools throughout the nation.
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