Illinois School Policies and Programs - Newspaper Coverage

Naperville Sun - December 1, 2004
The Beacon News (Aurora); The Naperville Sun - November 28, 2004
The Herald News (Joliet) - November 16, 2004

Your Turn
Reader responses to "Tackling a weighty issue" (see next article)
Naperville Sun - 12/1/2004

In response to "Tackling a Weighty Issue," we feel that during school hours, it is the school's responsibility to teach and offer healthy nutrition and exercise for our children. If the current hot lunch program does not offer what is healthiest for our children, then we should change it so it does. Regarding the example in the article about the kid throwing out the green beans, if all the choices on the plate were healthy, it wouldn't matter if they ate some and threw out some ... whatever they did eat was nutritional. (By the way, our son participates in hot lunch and loves the salad, and our daughter chooses to bring her lunch.) The hot lunch program is meant to be a convenience that enhances our children's lives. As parents, we promote healthy choices for our children. Our school's most popular fund-raiser, "McDonald's Night," disturbs us not only because there aren't healthy food choices, but the teachers help serve the food! We know that we can choose whether or not to participate in such fund-raisers and hot lunch programs, however, we would feel more willing to participate if the choices we give our children would be consistent with what we as parents and the schools are teaching as healthy lifestyle choices.
Cliff and Jill Kapson Naperville

We can vote out of office those school board members who fight for and believe it is good to have soda and junk food in our schools — for the reason that it provides "choice." Having choices doesn't mean there must be bad options along with the good. Something is wrong when an 11- or 12-year-old child can get lunch at school consisting of a giant plate-sized cinnamon roll and a Slurpee and then pick up a large bottle of soda from a vending machine for the bus ride home. When we provide these items at school we are sending the message that we approve — that it is OK. In fact we are neither helping our children nor educating them — we are hurting them. It is NOT OK. We need parents and school board members who will demand better food service programs in our schools.
E. Sokol Naperville

Indian Prairie Unit School District 204 is doing exactly what it should be doing to address the issue of students' health, nutrition and childhood obesity: It is reaching out to parents for help. As a member of the parent committee formed in 204 to address these issues and as one of the parents interviewed for this article, I'm grateful to District 204 and Patt Decker for having the courage and foresight to make our community a leader in the fight for children's health issues.

Obesity is a chronic, debilitating disease that can never be cured, but can be helped, one day at a time. Childhood obesity is a troubling condition that will require a sustained, well-thought-out plan of attack in order to help our children. Improving children's health through nutrition and exercise will require a cooperative effort between parents, district administrators, students, school administrators, PTA and PTSA organizations, local medical professionals and our food vendor, Sodexho. I'd like to see District 204 form an alliance with local medical professionals from our business partnership community to work with parents and students on realistic ways to adopt healthy lifestyles.

Saying that good health, nutrition and healthy lifestyles should be taught at home, isn't enough. Obesity is NOT a lifestyle choice. Obesity is a chronic medical condition to which many people are simply genetically predisposed. As painful a truth as that is, we can't let that stop us from giving our children the tools they need for good health. District 204 can help by mandating daily physical education classes for all elementary students; by increasing lunch periods in elementary school so children have an opportunity to eat and appreciate their lunches without shoveling food down their throats; by allowing middle school students to utilize a portion of their lunch period for walking instead of sitting; by making sure our children eat lunch at lunchtime, not at 10 a.m.; by insisting that our food vendor bring in healthy, nutritious choices for our children's lunches.
Mary Reid-Vizintos Naperville

The Nutrition in the Schools Committee of Naperville's Green Earth Institute supports the Indian Prairie Parent Council's efforts for healthy lunches. As parents with children in districts 203, 204 and other area schools, we believe that healthy eating habits start at home, but they should be reinforced at school. Junk food should not be offered — it is not illegal, but it certainly is unhealthy. Children need healthy food for optimal brain functioning and mental and physical health. We offer more information at our Web site, at www.greenearthinstitute.org.
Steve Tiwald President Green Earth Institute Naperville

Although I do agree that the school could help, all of this obesity starts at home. There isn't one day that I drive by a restaurant where it isn't packed. Look any day at a mother's shopping cart and at the convenience foods. What happened to eating at home, sitting around the table and actually conversing and actually making a meal other than hot dogs or pizza?
Kim J. Cooper Naperville

Schools have been thrown a pass in the form of the nutrition/obesity/health issue. Schools may not be willing receivers but if they catch this one and run with it there are no losing teams. Granted it is a tough issue to tackle but as a start they need to define "healthy" and take a look scientifically at what is going on in our food supply. They need to go beyond federal recommendations, which are complicated by political lobbies, corporate influence and short-staffed food protection agencies. A suggestion for calling the plays might be to look at ingredients and address potentially detrimental ones. For example, high-fructose corn syrup (glucose-fructose) is potentially causing obesity (high triglycerides and decreased liver function). Hydrogenated oils are known to cause inflammation in the joints and increase heart disease factors. Aspartame (and other artificial sweeteners) are suspected of negatively affecting the central nervous system. Artificial food colorings, made from coal tar, are likely to affect behavior. Many preservatives are known carcinogens and allergens. So all the "coaches" in the school district have to do is start demanding whole, real, minimally processed foods for their academic and sports athletes (students). They don't need to take away food choices from the students per se, they need to make sure the food they offer has nutritional value and feeds the brain and body so they can function properly. Come on — get in the game! It's time to make some significant plays. Pizza with some whole grain in the crust, no high fructose corn syrup or dye in the sauce, no additives in the cheese and a vegetable on the top is actually a healthy and tasty choice. Food for thought.
Kim Kroeger Naperville

[TOP]

Tackling a weighty issue
Schools address obesity, but some experts say more needs to be done
The Beacon News; The Naperville Sun - 11/28/2004
Angela Fornelli

Every time Mary Reid-Vizintos takes her 10-year-old daughter shopping for clothes, it's a struggle. Nothing in the children's department fits. And everything in the petite department is out-of-style for such a young girl. Reid-Vizintos has resorted to the sewing machine. The Aurora mother will do anything to help her daughter fit in and stop being teased by classmates about her weight. And she is doing everything she can to keep that from happening to other children, too.

Reid-Vizintos is part of a committee of parents from the Indian Prairie School District working with the district to implement ways of curbing the recent surge of overweight and obese children.

While Indian Prairie schools and other local districts have begun to address the problem through school lunch programs and physical education, some experts say they are not doing enough in the wake of a national call to action set forth by the U.S. Surgeon General. The percentage of adolescents who are overweight has nearly tripled in the past two decades, and that percentage for children ages 6 to 11 has more than doubled in that time frame, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Dr. Natalie Lambajian-Drummond, a pediatrician at Dreyer Medical Clinic in Aurora, said although healthy eating and lifestyle choices must be taught first at home, schools have to do more to help support and carry out those choices.

Problems show in P.E.

Mary Stoner notices the difference. "The kids are less strong. They're weaker. They're less coordinated," said the physical education teacher at Rollins Elementary School in the East Aurora School District. With more than 20 years of teaching under her belt, Stoner has seen a change in students' willingness and abilities to participate in physical activity.

Those observations have been verified across the country, as the Centers for Disease Control reports 61 percent of children 9 to 13 do not participate in any organized physical activity during nonschool hours, and 22 percent do not engage in any free-time physical activity. Many are spending their time sitting in front of the computer or TV or playing video games. In fact, 43 percent of adolescents watch more than two hours of television each day, according to the Surgeon General's report.

Possibly more alarming is that some students aren't receiving the proper amount of physical activity during the school day, either. While all schools in Illinois are required to have physical education classes daily, many get around those requirements by saying the students will make up for the lack of activity during after-school activities or sports.

In many local districts, including East Aurora, the elementary students only have physical education class twice a week for 30 minutes. Stoner said children need to be physically active for 30 to 40 minutes a day just to maintain their health, and they don't seem to be getting that after school, either. "You don't have kids going out, climbing trees and playing tag," Stoner said. "They are not inclined to ride their bikes around the neighborhood, but they say, 'You want to come over and play video games?' "

Switching to aerobics

That's why physical education teachers at many local schools, including some in Naperville, Plano, Geneva, Oswego and East Aurora, in recent years have changed the focus to aerobic activity and lifetime fitness activities that the students can play at home or during recess.

At Rollins, the teachers started the Mileage Club, where students can walk around a track during recess. Over time, as the miles add up, they receive rewards.

Wheatlands Elementary School in the Oswego School District runs a similar program, "Walking Wolves," during which the children take daily walks.

This fall, Geneva schools started giving students pedometers to teach them that the steps they take throughout the day add up to many miles. "We try to incorporate the positive aspects of things and make it visual — like the pedometers — so they can see what they are doing," said Cindy Gregait, a physical education teacher at Western Avenue School in Geneva.

Personal health

Gregait said the shift from doing competitive sports to fitness-related activities helps the students feel less self-conscious while at the same time teaching them to reach toward success. "It makes them feel good about who they are and what their fitness level is, and it doesn't make a difference if they could shoot 10 hoops because it's not about athleticism anymore," Gregait said.

West Aurora schools recently received new workout equipment that monitors how hard a student works, and teens at the Oswego and Geneva high schools monitor their heart rates during physical education to make them more aware of cardiovascular fitness.

Dave Keely, a physical education teacher at Oswego High, said he's seen an increased interest about personal health among students since they began analyzing their percentage of body fat throughout the term. When a student can see the benefit in physical activity, he added, they are much more likely to participate. The school also opened a center with cardiovascular equipment and a circuit so students have the opportunity to work out in an environment similar to that found in fitness clubs. "It provides an opportunity for kids to develop lifelong fitness with something they can carry over," Keely said.

School cafeteria

The lunchrooms apparently haven't seen as much change as the gym.

Fourth-grader Cameron Williamson started his lunch period last week at Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School in Aurora with two hot dogs, green beans and a carton of 2 percent milk. There was only one thing left on his plate at the end of lunch: the green beans. The boy's eating habits mirror many of the other kids in the lunchroom, including one fourth-grader who always eats his dessert — on this day, a Hershey's candy bar — first.

While the lunch program is required to put healthy food on the plate, kids don't always eat what's good for them. That, most people agree, means kids needs to be better educated about healthy eating habits — and not just in school.

"(Healthy eating) totally has to be taught at home," said Audrey Clair, mother of students in Indian Prairie schools, "but if it's not reinforced at school, it's a losing battle."

Some experts believe local schools are losing the battle. Forty percent of children nationwide chose pizza as their favorite school lunch food, while only 4 percent chose salad, according to the School Meals Study by Sodexho, a nationwide food management service that provides school lunches to several local schools.

The solution posed by some members of the Indian Prairie Parent Council, who visited two school lunchrooms this month: Get rid of all the unhealthy foods. "The only way to make them eat healthy is to only give them healthy choices," said Clair, of Naperville.

But that doesn't seem realistic to some. Patt Decker, director of support services for Indian Prairie, said the district probably "wouldn't go down that route" because buying school lunch is optional and based on offering choices to the students. "I don't think it's fair for us to say what a child should eat," she said. "They can pack a lunch and not even have access (to the hot lunch) if they want." Decker said the district instead can provide education to the students regarding healthy food choices and by offering those choices at lunch.

The district in January will pilot a project at five elementary schools in which coolers with fruits and salads will be available to the students.

The Indian Prairie Parent Council has also considered offering more healthy choices for students, highlighting nutrition education in health class, publishing nutrition awareness articles in the newsletter to parents, and providing a link on the district Web site to the school lunch nutritious information.

In Yorkville schools, health teachers have put more emphasis on nutrition during health class, and the food service has introduced a salad bar in the elementary schools, said Superintendent Thomas Engler. The district has also removed some vending machines and replaced soda with noncarbonated fruit juices, milk and water.

Most other local school districts say they are doing their part by offering food that follows the nutritional guidelines set forth by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National School Lunch Program.

'Eat the right thing'

But some experts, including pediatric dietician Florence DiMarco, believe that is not enough.

DiMarco, who has children in the Indian Prairie schools, said those meals aren't necessarily healthy because the food service bases nutritional value on a five-day period, rather than individual days. For example, if a student buys Sodexho's "energy zone" meal and eats all of its components every day, the student will meet nutritional guidelines for the week. The "energy zone" meal one day last week included a barbecue rib sandwich, Tator Tots, sliced peaches, chocolate pudding and milk. The fat content of the chocolate pudding will ultimately balance out with the nutrients in the other foods when it is calculated over a week instead of a day. The challenge for the food service providers is that, to keep the kids interested in the "energy zone" meal, they must offer choices such as chocolate pudding.

"If I put green beans and an apple with that sandwich, they'll take it and throw it out," said Lori McMahon, general manager of Sodexho School Services for the Indian Prairie School District. "We're trying to entice them to eat the right things."

DiMarco suggested that schools encourage healthy eating by providing activities such as food tastings that could get the students excited about healthy foods. "As adults, we need to provide the healthy environment instead of relying on the child's own choice," DiMarco said. "We should really try and encourage kids because their habits start young."

Change priorities

Lambajian-Drummond also believes changes must be made to school lunches, and she recommends all her overweight and obese patients to not buy lunch from the cafeteria. Still, that doesn't always work. "I can tell parents until I'm blue in the face to pack healthy lunches for their kids, but if the rest of the kids are eating pizza and french fries, that's not fair," she said.

If schools could provide more healthy lunches — even healthier pizza or chicken selections — that problem would not be so prevalent, she said. She believes change must happen at a state level to put children's health as a priority on the school's budget. If the schools had more funding, they could negotiate with food suppliers for healthier school lunches (which are usually more costly) and provide after-school, extracurricular activities for children at younger age levels. "I understand kids aren't going to want to eat carrot sticks, but they also prefer not to learn about history. They prefer to play video games," she said. "Are we going to let them?"

[TOP]

Trimming the fat
Schools push for healthier foods in cafeterias
Special
The Daily Herald, 11/16/2004
Paige Fumo Fox

At a board meeting during the summer, Joliet High School Board members found themselves fielding a bid for snack cakes. "That was the final straw," said district spokesman Dennis Yohnka. "The board has wrestled with this for several years, wanting to get healthier food into the cafeteria and vending machines. (After the snack cake bid) they said, 'No, this is it, there won't be any more.'" It may not be happening with the speed of the Atkins diet's rise in popularity, but slowly, healthier foods are making their way into elementary and high schools.

At Joliet's two high schools, Yohnka said, the vending machines in the cafeterias offer juice and water and healthier snacks, like crackers and baked chips. Others located in other parts of the school have soda and junk food. All are turned off during the school day. "In the cafeteria, you don't find yourself staring at a Hostess Snowball anymore," he said.

This fall, Chicago Public Schools students returned to their cafeterias to find the soda machines turned off or replaced. Instead, they're sipping fruit juices, water or sports drinks such as Gatorade. The greasy fried potato chips and tortilla chips have been replaced with their baked — and thus lower-fat — counterparts.

In Orland School District 135, carbonated beverages such as Mountain Dew haven't reappeared this year. Other schools are following suit, but many students still can eat a daily lunch of pizza and french fries, particularly at the high school level, despite increasing public awareness of childhood obesity. "It really is at the forefront of a national movement," said Richard Lesniak, Orland assistant superintendent for business services, of the decision to take soda out of the lunch rooms of the district's 10 elementary and middle schools. "We had a lot of (physical education) and regular teachers requesting on a regular basis that we remove the pop from the machines." Besides eliminating soda, the district is adding a few healthier choices to its snack vending machines, which are operated by the Marriot food service company. Students only can use the machines after school, such as before an afternoon sports practice. It took students about a month to adjust to the change and quit asking for Pepsi and Mountain Dew, said Dennis Soustak, principal of Jerling Junior High in Orland Park. Some bring their own soda, but not many more than last year, when students could have purchased soda at school, he said.

Snack machines

There are no snack machines or soda machines at any of the elementary schools or four junior high schools in the Joliet Grade Schools district, said spokeswoman Sandy Zalewski. The junior high schools have vending machines with water, fruit juices and Power-Aid drinks. Gompers principal Anna White is a firm believer in the no-soda rule. "I'm very adamant," she said. "I'm strictly against soda for kids — while they're here with me, they won't have any." That even includes at class pizza parties and after school. The only exception is if a child brings a can from home. "That doesn't happen very often," she said. "The kids are pretty used to their choices of milk or fruit juice." The statistics of childhood obesity, and the need for children to eat healthier, is so concerning to Joliet Grade Schools members that they've created a committee to address the issue, White said. "We're pulling together teachers, administrators, parents and possibly even students," she said. "We'll talk about what kinds of snacks to promote in schools." Washington principal Cedric McLaughlin will be the chairman of the committee. They'll discuss what types of snacks should be available in schools for things like after-school events and parties.

This year also marks the first time the Chicago Public Schools system has instituted guidelines for stocking snack machines in addition to the soda ban. No more than 10 percent of a snack's calories can come from fat, and it must provide at least 5 percent of one of the major nutrients, such as iron, calcium or vitamin A. The approved snack list now includes items like Frito Lay baked potato chips, Otis Spunkmeyer low-fat banana nut muffins, frosted strawberry Pop Tarts and yogurt. "We're just selling 100 percent fruit juices (during lunch)," said Lynn Johnson, lunchroom manager at Chicago Agricultural High School. Any time bags of chips are offered, they're the lower-fat, baked variety. The changes caused some students to gripe, Johnson said. "They'll say, 'I'm not fat. Why do I have to do this?'" Johnson said. But the juice is selling quite well now, she said.

Schools that are pushing better foods are in large part responding to the growing epidemic of childhood obesity. Nationwide, one in five children is overweight, putting that child at increased risk for medical problems such as diabetes and hypertension, as well as the emotional problems associated with the social stigma of being too heavy. With many students eating at least one, and sometimes two or more meals, at school, pressure is on to steer children into better eating habits.

Lincoln-Way High School campuses in Frankfort and New Lenox offer more chicken, and they never have sold soda, said Denise Boettger, director of food service. Baked potatoes often make the menu, but there still are the burger-and-fries standbys. "We try to make different menus. We try to watch the fat and calories," Boettger said. Sue Susanke admits she's one of the least popular gals in the Chicago Public Schools these days. As director of logistics, which oversees the district's food services, she's the one who, for eight years, has fought for lower-fat, healthier foods in the cafeterias and machines in the district's 600 schools. "Some day, these kids will thank me," Susanke said. Thank her for the Fig Newtons, low-fat muffins and granola bars in the vending machines. Thank her for lean turkey dogs or hamburgers with low-fat cheese. Thank her for more fresh fruits and vegetables. "Every year, we try to do a little something more," she said. "I think we have made moves in the right direction. The good thing is every year we make progress." She has helped coordinate workshops for parents to help them plan inexpensive healthy meals.

Federal program

Schools, both public and private, may opt to participate in the federally regulated national school lunch program, which requires meals to meet specific nutritional guidelines. But that doesn't prevent schools from offering additional snacks or other meal choices. The only rule is soda machines can't be placed in the same area lunches are offered, said Lawrence Rudmann, spokesman for the USDA Office of Food and Nutrition Services. The agency has been promoting educational programs to encourage students, teachers and parents to be better informed about what they eat. "We don't want to get into the role of dictating what parents and teachers should do," Rudmann said. Instead, the goal is to share the information. The federal lunch program itself has made a few changes in the past 10 years, Rudmann said, such as requiring foods to have less saturated fat. Also, the commodities that schools receive from the government, like bulk cheeses and meats, are now lower in salt and fat, and there are more fresh fruits and vegetables available.

Joliet Grade Schools follows those federal guidelines, White said. "In our district, the lunches are planned out, (with regards to) calorie count and fat count," she said. "When they are served lunch, at least you know it's not going to be all junk food. My biggest concern is that they're not out playing the way kids used to be. They're in front of computers a lot. On top of that, they're eating the wrong things." Yohnka said that at lunch time, students are offered healthy choices like fruits and vegetables. "They've done best to steer kids to a well-rounded meal with vegetables and fruit, but given a choice, students still prefer Italian beef sandwiches, pizza and fries," he said. "There's still a longer line for pizza than there is for a chicken breast and green beans."

The Office of Food and Nutrition Services is in its second year of a pilot program that offers grants to schools to buy fresh, locally grown produce and serve it during non-meal times, such as after recess, in the halls between classes or after school before afternoon activities. "We tried it in four states last year, and it got overwhelming reviews," Rudmann said. This year, it has expanded to eight states, but Illinois is not one of them. The USDA also has started requiring participating schools to create "wellness policies" that get teachers, parents and health officials to work together and figure out locally how to improve nutrition in the schools and at home.

At the state level, state Rep. Tom Cross (R-Oswego) introduced a legislative package that included a so-called "junk food ban" for school vending machines, but those bills never made it to the House floor. A spokesman for Cross said the bills could resurface in the spring 2005 legislative session. "We're absolutely committed to the issue of obesity in children. Do we maybe need to revise the legislation a little bit? Perhaps," spokesman David Dring said. "There's probably going to be some attempts to appease some of the opposition, but we're not going to water it down so that it doesn't address the issue."

At Argo High School in Summit, the wrestlers, who were looking for healthy ways to bulk up for meets, led the call for more fresh fruit in the cafeteria, principal Thomas Dixey said. The cafeteria also serves more salads and deli sandwiches that are going over well, Dixey said. The vending machines still have their share of fried chips and chocolates, but they also have pretzels and Chex Mix, he said. The machines are on only after school. In the hot lunch lines, pizza remains most in demand. One of the most popular "menus" Dixey sees is the combination of pizza, a vegetable, mashed potatoes and an order of fries, "which I think is an awful lot of starch, not to mention calories." Dixey tries to encourage students to eat wisely. At the beginning of the school year, he talked to freshmen about what they would see in the cafeteria and, if they were to receive a free or discounted lunch because of their family income, they had to pick balanced meals.

Rudmann, of the USDA office of Food and Nutrition Services, agrees that educating students can be tough, but it's necessary. "Getting kids to eat healthy is always a challenge," Rudmann said.

[TOP]