Meatless Mondays to Come to New York City Schools?

This week, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer released a report titled "A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System," in which he proposed several health-promoting measures for New York City schools. As ways of addressing the fact that one in five NYC kindergarten children is obese, Stringer suggested the following measures:

• Require Food Curriculum in Public Schools
• Expose City Students to Farms and Gardens
• Institute Meatless Mondays in City Schools

For more info, check out NYU's Wagner Food Policy Alliance blog.

There have been both positive and negative responses to the "Meatless Mondays" proposal, in particular. I, for one, am in favor of it—as long as the food being served includes real vegetables and whole grains rather than just pizza, french fries, and ketchup. For example, vegan chili is incredibly easy to make in large quantities for cheap and is packed with nutrients.

One of the main concerns of people unfamiliar with vegetarian eating is protein. Nine times out of ten, the first question is, "WHAT ABOUT PROTEIN?" Contrary to popular belief, once you know what to do (key word: nutrition education), it's incredibly easy. And anyway, as a country, Americans get much more protein than we technically need. One meal without animal protein is not going to cause your kids to shrivel up and die.

Weight Loss Surgery for Teens

In the Science section of today's New York Times, there was an article about getting weight loss surgeries such as lap-band and gastric bypass procedures. The piece told the story of one girl who, now 20, had a gastric bypass when she was 14, going from 404 pounds to 175. She was the first

A 2007 study, which used data from 2000 to 2003, showed that, although rare, bariatric surgery in children and teens was on the rise. It is estimated that it will continue to rise, becoming almost as common in children as in adults.

While I think options are an important thing and that as time goes on, and that it may become easier to address and avoid some of the complications that result from weight loss surgery, I worry that people would come to see it as a quick fix rather than as a major life-changing procedure.

You don't just get up off the operating table and go eat a burger. It takes a long, long time to adjust to being able to eat a much smaller volume of food, and there are also many nutritional anemias and deficiencies that can develop post-op, depending on the type of surgery you've had and how it affects the digestion and absorption process. In children who aren't done growing, there is some concern about longterm effects.

Read the full article here.

"Let's Move" Gets Moving

Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative, geared at raising "a healthier generation of kids" and fighting childhood obesity. This week, she announced the campaign to much enthusiasm. While "Let's Move" doesn't cover food marketing to kids, it does offer a comprehensive plan to address factors that contribute to childhood obesity. One of the main things is to get kids to eat less and move more as well as to ensure that healthier food is served in schools.

On the Whitehouse.gov site, a release was posted detailing the plan:

Let’s Move is comprehensive, collaborative, and community-oriented and will include strategies to address the various factors that lead to childhood obesity. It will foster collaboration among the leaders in government, medicine and science, business, education, athletics, community organizations and more. And it will take into account how life is really lived in communities across the country – encouraging, supporting and pursuing solutions that are tailored to children and families facing a wide range of challenges and life circumstances.

You can read more about it here.

The Edible Schoolyard Comes to Brooklyn

This summer, construction on the first east-coast affiliate of the Edible Schoolyard Program, developed by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, is set to begin at P.S. 216 in Brooklyn. The new $1.6 million, solar-powered building will house a kitchen and communal tables where children can share the foods they grow in the garden outside. This photo, courtesy of the New York Times, depicts a rendering of what the garden will look like.

Teachers will use the garden to give students lessons in subjects like math, science, and history. There are also plans for a chicken coop, portable greenhouse, and composting system, outdoor pizza oven, and cistern for collecting rainwater.

While the program does have its critics, I think it's a wonderful idea. I wish we'd had something like this when I was in school. I think we went apple-picking once as a class, and we also had an incubator full of eggs that never hatched, but that was about it.

While I have to nod along when I hear Alice Waters called "a bit of a fruitcake," I admire her stance on the importance of understanding where our food comes from and taking joy in providing loved ones with something delicious that's good for them, and I agree that if we want to change the eating habits of Americans, we need to start with children.

I think teaching kids how to grow a garden and what they can do with what they cultivate is a timely endeavor, especially given the push to develop more urban gardens—you gotta learn sometime and somewhere. Why not in school? Worst comes to worst, they'll grow up to be marijuana farmers in New Jersey or California. One could do worse.

One thing not mentioned in any of the articles I've read about the Edible Schoolyard or Alice Waters is the therapeutic aspect of gardening. Though I have as yet to catch the bug myself, I come from a family of gardeners. My mom could often be found tending to the flowers or vegetables when I was a kid, and the summer my grandfather lived with us after my grandma died, he was out in the sun almost every day, pulling up weeds, trimming, and watering. As my mom put it, "He knew how to mourn."

A lot of people also find it very satisfying to grow beautiful plants. Even Chris has his "babies"—a shell ginger, sunflower, basil, oregano, and aloe plant. I wonder if he sings to them when I'm not home...It's somehow calming to be surrounded by plants. It's also good feng shui, if you're into that.

Fed Up With School Lunch

You guys should check out this great blog, Fed Up: School Lunch Project.

One teacher sets out on an experiment to eat what the kids eat in 2010. Could you eat school lunch every day for a year? Stay tuned!

Many Parents Overestimate Child's Activity

Tara Parker-Pope recently posted on her New York Times blog Well about a British study that showed how often parents may overestimate how physically active their child on.

In the study, 1,892 British school children were equipped with accelerometers that measured their activity throughout the day. A child was seen as inactive if that activity amounted to less than an hour per day. Though the vast majority of parents described their child as physically active, over 39 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys were actually getting less than 60 minutes of physical activity a day.

Interestingly, it was the parents of children with lower fat mass who guessed wrong about the adequacy of their child's activity, as were parents of girls. I find that fascinating. I imagine that says something to the way we perceive overweight individuals in terms of physical activity as well as something girls and self-esteem perhaps? Just a few front-of-the-mind thoughts that may be worth unpacking...

Never mind

I feel kind of like a dope now for actually believing for a split-second that the FTC's December 15 forum on food marketing to kids and the proposal that I blogged about a few days ago might actually hold some promise. It never fails to amaze me how one source of media will paint a completely different picture from another. I guess during finals week I was a bit lazy about not checking various sources of important stories. Haha but at least finals are over now and I have no excuse!

If you've never read Marion Nestle's blog, Food Politics, or any of her books for that matter, I'd recommend having a look—I find what she writes eye-opening. I went back a few entries today and found some more specifics on what exactly the group proposal (which I posted about a few days ago) entailed.

I'd read that it proposed restrictions on saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, and sodium for foods marketed to children, but what I hadn't seen was what those limits were: 1 gram saturated fat or less per serving and not more than 15% of total calories; less than half a gram of trans fat per serving; no more than 13 grams of sugar per serving; and no more than 200 mg of sodium per serving.

You don't have to be a student of dietetics to see that there are a lot, a lot of unhealthy foods can still meet these guidelines. Not only that, but there's still a lot of discrepancy over what a serving size should be in the first place. Besides that, there's a whole slew of other hazy details complicating the matter. Talk about a mess. While I'm glad the issue is getting some attention (not that it hasn't been getting attention), it's disheartening to see some of the ways in which food companies get around regulations both in place and proposed.

Federal Group Seeks to Cut Food Advertising to Children

A federal group created by Congress is looking to restrict food marketing to children to include only foods that provide "a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet," according to their proposal. This group also wants to limit the advertising of foods and beverages high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat, which they feel contribute to childhood obesity.

The recommendations this group is working on will be sent to Congress next year after a public comment period.

I would really like to see something like this go into effect. It drives me nuts how aggressively unhealthy foods are pushed on children, and it would be wonderful to see the government do something to curb that. What a concept.

Check out this Wall Street Journal article for more info.

General Mills to Reduce Sugar in Cereal

About time! General Mills announced Wednesday that it plans to reduce the amount of sugar in 10 of their kids' cereals.

For example, the added sugars in Cocoa Puffs could reportedly be reduced by 25% of the original level and 18% off the current level along with an increase in whole grains and nutrients. Some other cereals that are said to be getting the same treatment are Trix and Lucky Charms.

Last year, Kellogg's reduced the sugars in some of their cereals such as Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, and Corn Pops, and Post also plans to retune some of their cereals this year as well. Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles are due for a makeover, apparently.

I can't help wondering just how they plan to reduce the sugar while retaining their token sweet flavor. While it's possible they can probably get by using less and counting on kids not to notice too much, I wouldn't be surprised to learn they're using some other kind of sweetener.

While sugary, low-fiber cereals aren't necessarily the best choices, they're better than a lot of other ready-to-eat foods kids might grab on their way out the door (aka, pop tarts, donuts), especially when consumed with milk. Unlike sugar, kids' and teenagers' diets are much lower in milk than they used to be.

Anyone hear about how the dairy industry's "Raise Your Hand For Chocolate Milk" campaign? I have mixed feelings about it. While it's true that some kids probably wouldn't drink pre-sweetened milk and any milk may be better than none, I don't think we should ascribe that belief to all children. I think this practice of marketing sugary products and other "kid" foods to children should stop. Kids are allowed to drink milk and eat real, whole foods that adults do.

That said, I did just make myself a soy-milk hot chocolate...Once in a while, a treat like that is nice—just a tablespoon of a high-quality organic mix that actually has real cocoa powder in it is all you really need to add. It's the artificial stuff we're telling our kids they like better than everything else is what I have a problem with.

On the other hand, I think that if schools get rid of chocolate milk, then maybe they should also get rid of sodas and sugary juices. While chocolate milk may not be as great a choice as regular milk, I think it's usually a better option than a drink that won't even give you any nutrients (aside from calories) with all that sugar.

An article that's not about Childhood Obesity!

Sometimes I feel like everyone has been freaking out so much about the "childhood obesity crisis" that we overlook some other important issues—many of them concerning children of normal weight and the ways in which their attitude towards food is so impressionable at a young age.

I'm not saying that I have the magic ad campaign bullet, but I will say that I think there's a lot of room to mess up when the boldface message out there basically amounts to: OMG OUR KIDS ARE SO FAT! SOMEONE (ELSE) DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!

Imagine being, say, a nine-year-old girl and thinking, "Are they talking about me? I had a cupcake yesterday. Maybe I am fat..." Or even a kid who is somewhat overweight or has a borderline BMI could get their head all turned around by the mixed messages or internalize it too much, thinking that they need to be constantly exercising or avoiding all trans fats or whatever it is that spells "weight loss" to them. It sets up a mechanism for disordered eating.

An interesting article I came across yesterday has nothing to do with weight loss in kids or childhood obesity. It's actually about children with Type 1 Diabetes and how they handle Halloween, a traditionally sugar-laden holiday.

Because their bodies don't produce insulin, children with Type 1 Diabetes have to carefully monitor their blood sugar and insulin level as well as follow a modified diet, which helps make sure that carbohydrates are distributed evenly throughout the day.

For years, sweets were heavily restricted, but in recent years, some doctors have begun to allow candy in small amounts as long as it's balanced with the right amount of insulin. They do suggest having a plan before the trick-or-treating starts, though.

I found this a very interesting viewpoint, since I don't read much from this perspective. It's kind of a reminder that not all kids are gorging on candy all the time. It's too bad that kids with Type 1 have to learn moderation because of their disease, but in some ways, it probably does spare them some of the issues other children are dealing with.

Moms Give Themselves a Gold Star for Nutrition

A lot of research shows that a mother's eating habits and attitude towards food has a big impact on children's food behavior as they grow. Mom's nutritional knowledge dictates what her child eats, so when she eats well, so do they.

A new report shows, however, that while healthy eating may be at the forefront of a lot of moms' minds, attitudes and intentions don't always align with what moms are actually eating and serving.

According to a report by the NPD, a marketing research group, while 75 percent of new moms and 65 percent of "experienced" mom say they actively seek out products with nutritional benefits, they are less likely to actually eat these foods.

And when it came to nutritional knowledge, most moms claimed to be "very of extremely knowledgeable" about nutrition and eating, but when asked to take a test, few actually scored in that category.

Since I haven't had kids yet, I don't know whether doctors give new (or experienced) mothers any info about nutrition for children or turns them on to easy-to-understand resources where they can learn about it, but I think that could be a big help.

Read more here.

Another Reason I Like Michelle Obama

When it comes to health and nutrition, the first lady seems to have a good head on her shoulders.

On a recent trip to the Health and Human Services Department, she stressed that even small changes in diet and exercise can have a big impact. Got that? "Not totally evaporating your way of being as you know it today."

"Imagine what we'll be facing in 20 or 30 years," she continued, "if we don't get on this issue. None of us wants a future like that for our children."

I really think that's an important message to put out there, especially now, when stress levels are high and health—especially diet and exercise—is one of the first things to fall by the wayside.

Putting an emphasis on the need for that healthy balance in your life is something I wish we saw more of—why can't our country make a bigger deal out of the fact that preventative care can help you in the long run?

Junk Food Habits—starting early

Last night, I was having a conversation with someone from Sweden about the differences she's noticed in the way people eat in the U.S. versus Sweden, and—surprise, surprise—she told me that whenever she goes home, even if she's still eating favorite treats, she loses weight.

"It's so hard for me to eat healthy here!" she said, griping about how hard unhealthy foods are pushed and how she feels like stores go out of their way to steer you away from the good stuff.

While I've never been to Sweden, I definitely agree that healthy foods are sort of marginalized here and made into these, like, luxury items, even though there are plenty of healthy foods like sweet potatoes and oatmeal and beans and lentils and such that are actually very inexpensive. The thing is, Americans have been programmed in recent years to think that eating healthy costs a lot of money.

This Times article looks at a study that was published in the journal Pediatrics of about 800 low-income Philadelphia school-children ages fourth grade to sixth grade who were able to buy about 400 calories worth of snacks with just the dollar and change in their pocket. Some of the most common snacks were candy (Sour Patch Kids, Peanut Chews) in the morning on the way to school, and chips after school—foods that are high in calories but almost totally lacking in nutritional value.

We start 'em young here, I guess. Maybe I was born an old lady, but my favorite after school snack used to be an apple with peanut butter. Cereal was another go-to. It still is. I guess I did like Fruit Roll-Ups and Fruit-by-the-Foot and Gushers when I was younger because "everybody else" was eating them and they were all over TV. At least those things were fortified with vitamin C, if just barely...

What's it going to take for people to stop equating "healthy" with "boring" and "expensive?" That's not the kind of attitude we should be passing down to our children.

Paula Deen on the View

Oh. My.God. This segment is hilarious. It's from a recent episode of The View, on which author Paula Deen was promoting her new children's cookbook, which isn't exactly full of healthy recipes.

I think the best part is how uncomfortable Barbara Walters is! At one point early on, she asks, "Obesity is the number one problem for kids today. Everything you have here is enormously fattening. You tell kids to have cheesecake for breakfast... Doesn't it bother you that you're adding to it?"

Deen plays the "teach moderation" card and of course. "You don't eat like this every day," she says. True, but it still kind of sounds like a cop-out to me. I feel like a lot of people use the phrase "in moderation" when they can't think of anything else to say.

Then again, it's Paula Deen we're talking with here, not Gwyneth Paltrow. You want a healthy kids' cookbook, she's probably the person to write it.

Here's the segment.

Big Food Vs. Big Insurance

On September 10th, the New York Times ran an Op-Ed by Michael Pollan titled "Big Food Vs. Big Insurance." In the piece, Pollan reflects on the health care debate and suggests that the fact that the U.S. spends twice as much on health care per person as most European countries is because that, on average, we're fatter, according to a recent study.

So many chronic diseases are linked to diet, yet people seem slow to use the power they have to eat better and help prevent the development of these illnesses, such as Type II diabetes (which the U.S. is spending $16 billion to treat).

"That’s why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry," he says, calling the way American's eat the "elephant in the room" during the healthcare debate.

"To put it more bluntly," says Pollan, "the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup."

He praises the soda tax and the new "are you pouring on the fat?" anti-sugary beverage ad campaign as well as innovations in the approach to tackling childhood obesity.

Personally, I agree with a lot of what he says, but reforming the food industry is going to take a lot of time and energy. I'd love to see a bunch of people get on board for this and make it priority, but the U.S. really isn't so big on preventative medicine. You'd almost think they want you to get as sick as possible so you'll just have to spend more to "fix the problem." That's just my cynical viewpoint on it, though perhaps that "wait until a problem develops and then treat just the acute symptoms thing" is more subconscious, something deeply ingrained in our society and not a conscious attempt at making more money.

The main thing I feel after reading this is that I hope a lot more people wake up to the idea that if you work to maintain a healthy lifestyle during the course of your life, you're more likely to avoid preventable, expensive illnesses. The question is how are you going to wake them up?

Fourth Graders Dieting?

In 1986, Jeffrey Zaslow conducted interviews with 100 fourth-grade girls about their dieting habits. More than half of the girls surveyed said that they were dieting, and 75% of them—even the skinniest girls—said they weighed too much.

In this article, Zaslow reflects on that study and checks back in with the girls, who are now in their early 30's. Recent research shows that societal obsession with thinness and pressure on young girls to attain that ideal are, unfortunately but not surprisingly, even stronger.

Since the 1980's, incidence of eating disorders have risen dramatically, and between 2000 and 2006, the percentage of girls who believe they must be thin went from 48% to 60%. Between the increasingly unrealistic images of "perfect" (aka "retouched") women in ads and the concern with preventing childhood obesity, it's no surprise that more and more nine-year-olds think they need to be tiny, not realizing that depriving themselves of the nutrients they need could put them at risk for stunted growth and brain development.

While there have been some efforts to improve girls' self-esteem (books, for example), I don't think that nearly enough is being done. I understand the precarious balance of the situation—encouraging healthy eating habits and self-acceptance without going overboard in either direction. This is one key area that needs more attention. Lots more.

While browsing the Times Science section this morning, I came across this article about how doctors, especially overweight doctors, struggle with telling patients they are overweight and what to do about it.

This article focuses in particular on pediatricians and how they deal with preaching the "eat less, exercise more" doctrine when they clearly don't take their own advice.

As someone with an interest in how and where children receive their information and how they develop attitudes and habits concerning diet and exercise, I found this to be a particularly good read.

It's such a delicate time in someone's life, and it's so easy to say the wrong thing that will set off a series of responses and set up a child for a lifetime of this, that, or the other thing. Still, it's so important to talk about it rather than ignore an issue out of fear.

Someone needs to write a handbook that doesn't suck about how to talk to your children (or pediatric patients) about these things.

I'm just thinking back to my pediatrician, who had no neck. I don't remember him being particularly overweight; he just had no neck, which made it impossible to take him seriously.

Mommy's Little Statistic

Healthy eating may start at home, but parents need to do more than just eat well themselves. 

A recent study, published in Science Daily last week, tracked the eating habits of a nationally representative sample of adults ages 20-65 and their children ages 2-18 via a questionnaire. It showed that parents' "healthy example" diets have little effect on their kids. 

After comparing the parent and child questionnaires, and scoring them against the USDA 2005 Health Eating Index, researchers  found little similarities in intakes of carbohydrates, proteins, fats—saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, etc—or vitamins. However, the children's diets did resemble their mothers' slightly more so than their fathers'. The child's age and the family's income, however, did have a slight effect on the overall score. For example, the older the child, the less similarity, as friends tend to become more important in adolescence.

This doesn't mean that kid's won't pick up on parental signals. Parents' attitudes toward food—good or bad—can have a profound effect. Also, it's never a bad idea to stock the house with healthy options. FYI, I don't really think fat-free twinkies count as healthy...It's not about creating a controlled environment at home; it's about teatching your children how to make good choices for themselves.