Elementary School Healthy Vending

Looking for a way to promote healthy living, through exercise and fresh vending options? One way is to participate in the National Walk to School Day. Kids and parents alike are doing just that in the Kansas City Metro area. Lacing up their tennis shoes and getting set to hit the pavement to get to school is just one simple way of promoting healthy living. Fresh, healthy vending options and exercise are important to maintain the health of not only adults, but kids, as well.

The purpose of National Walk to School Day is to encourage children to live healthy and get out and exercise. Kansas City is hoping the day will be just the beginning of a healthier lifestyle for kids all over the area. Active Living KC is a program that encourages healthy living by introducing regular physical activities into the daily routines of kids and adults. Healthy habits, such as walking instead of riding the bus, and fresh vending choices are important to teach children who may not be getting enough exercise. Healthy eating habits can also be supplemented by fresh healthy vending options.

The Hickman Mills School District was given a grant from the Health Care Foundation. This grant has allowed the school district to implement the National Walk to School Day to the Ingels Elementary School already. They hope the fresh vending program is a success and wish to bring it to all of the schools in the district.

Many of the schools are already planning to participate in the program. They plan to use a “walking school bus” on Wednesday. Groups of children will walk to their school, along with at least one or more adults with them for safety. Kids walking to their schools should always be accompanied by a responsible adult, as the safety of all children is also of the utmost importance to the school district.

With many healthy options now available, such as fresh healthy vending products and the Walk to School Day, the school district hopes that all kids will learn the importance of healthy living, including eating right and getting plenty of exercise.

In the Newman-Crows Landing United School District, the food service program has done well with participation and finances in the past couple of years. So with lunch participation numbers going strong, they have decided to focus more on the breakfast part of the program this year. Good nutrition for students who may not be eating well or even at all is extremely important, although the financial aspect is something the district must consider. Fresh healthy vending is important for kids to eat right and get their needed vitamins and nutrients even while in school.

Sodexo, a privately-owned food service company, has partnered with the school district for more than four years. The money that the kids spend on food in the schools is then put back into the system so that the program is enriched. This year, a large part of the $230,000 made in profits will be used to equip a new kitchen in the Hurd Barrington Elementary School, which is slated to open next fall. Some profits will also be used to buy mobile carts for the new breakfast program, as well as prizes for a district-wide food service promotion.

Fresh vending is very important in the health of children. Since the school district has teamed up with Sodexo, the lunch program has dramatically increased. For example, Orestimba High sees between 50 to 60 percent of students eating lunch on campus. Before Sodexo became the supplier, only 10-15 percent were eating lunches that were purchased. Fresh vending programs have great promise and should be considered for all schools.

“That says a lot for the quality of the lunch menu offered, especially with an open campus,” remarked Darlene Miller, Sodexo manager assigned to the district.  Many studies have shown that it is crucial to eat healthy in the morning in order to have physical strength and good brain activity during the day. Fresh healthy vending options for kids is imperative to help them stay focused and energized during the long school day. Students may not be able to eat at home, or may not have the chance to or even be given breakfast. The school district hopes to help students by offering them a program called “Second Chance Breakfast.”

This program will launch at Hunt Elementary in October and gives the children a chance to enjoy a continental-style breakfast in the morning, and is offered as a reimbursable meal.

“Kids who eat breakfast learn better and we want all of our students to go into their classrooms well fed,” Mendoza explained.

Everyone knows that a huge problem in the United States is childhood obesity. But what can be done about it? Fresh vending is definitely one solution. Eureka Public School is one school attempting to make a difference in childhood obesity and the problems it can cause. According to Jennifer Beck, a kindergarten teacher, they try to make learning about fresh vending and healthy choices fun.

Elizabeth Serr, a sixth grader who attends Eureka School, states that they are indeed making it fun to learn about healthy choices. “It’s just when they do it they make it fun for you to learn and ‘not eat your vegetables’,” Serr said.

Recently, Eureka has done what they can to make healthy eating a top priority, At the door, they set up fruits and vegetables so kids can grab them on the way by. A “veggie challenge” is also a hit at the school, where there is a challenge to eat vegetables as much as possible, with a chart to fill up to receive a prize.

“They’re like little beanie baby vegetable things and they got little faces on them,” Serr describes.

The high school has even gotten involved with a fresh healthy vending machine, bought by a grant in 2005. A fresh healthy vending machine helps to keep the kids full and offers them a choice of fresh foods to pick from. It has since been maintained and filled by the students. The students of the high school also come to talk to the kids in the elementary classes with a program called “harvest of the day”.

“The high school kids come in and they do a little presentation of a fruit or a vegetable and then they get to try it,” Beck said. “That gives the kids opportunities to try new vegetables or fruits.”

The fruit for Thursday was the mango. The high schooler’s even made mango muffins for the kids to try out.

The goal of healthy eating at Eureka is to hopefully improve the kids eating patterns at home. The school has since been awarded the “Governor’s Healthy School Award” three separate times and the next time will earn the award for fresh healthy vending.

The fifth graders of Lincoln Elementary Schools are learning and teaching the ABC’s of eating healthier foods, as well as decoding food labels. They are partnering up with different organizations to help educate other students and even parents about how important it is to eat right and exercise, and the importance of fresh healthy vending.

Nomar Tejeda, 8, challenged his friends to look at the long list of different names for sugar that can be found in soft drinks as they filed into their gymnasium. He stated that drinking 20 ounces of soda a day for seven days will result in the consumption of over 200 cubes of sugar. His goal was to help kids make better choices in the beverages they choose.

Mary Ellen Farrell says she sees the importance of teaching her students good nutrition and fresh vending choices during physical education. “Teaching students about nutrition goes hand in hand with fitness and physical education,” said Farrell. “As part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s call to eating healthy and get moving in schools, we are teaching our students during their P.E. classes about nutrition and linking this to fitness and gym lessons. Our Green Team students can not wait to present what they have learned to their parents and to the New Britain community.”

Displays, healthy snack foods and fresh vending, as well as activities, allow students to try fresh, organic vegetables provided by the Urban Oaks and Whitsons Culinary Group partnerships.

The program developed by the first lady “Let’s Move!” asks the schools in the nation to help battle childhood obesity. One in every three American children are obese. In New Britain, 30 percent of children who are 4 are obese, and 18 percent are overweight. Predictions also state that one out of every three children born in 2000 will develop diabetes. In Connecticut, over 230,000 people have some type of diabetes.

Jeff Taddeo, who is the culinary service director of Whitsons Culinary Group, is helping to change the school’s menu to include healthier foods. Whitsons have been using freshly grown ingredients and buying produce for years from Urban Oaks. Fresh healthy vending options are extremely important to the company.

“We’ve been introducing fresh organic food into the menu. At first it looks different, it taste different. We’ve been using a lot of the greens in our salads that the kids eat,” Taddeo said. “It’s important to get kids involved with healthy eating habits at an earlier age because it’s easier for them to change their eating habits. It’s equally important, although hard sometimes, to get their parents to eat healthier foods.”

Through a website offered by Whitsons, known as Nutri-Cafe (www.whitsons.com/nutrition),
students and parents can learn more about what is in their school lunches in the way of calories and nutrients.

In order to encourage healthier eating habits, the Orfalea Foundation, located in Santa Barbara, have joined up with both the Santa Ynez Elementary School and the Santa Ynez Charter School. The schools goal is to serve lunches that are made fresh every single day, in accordance with the s’Cool Food Initiative. Fresh vending options are important for all children to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

As part of the program, both schools participated in a recent program, the Junior Chef. Each classroom took 15 minutes to prepare and cook a vegetable stew known as ratatouille. Each individual child got to work with Chef Educator Andrea Martin on October 14th on the ratatouille. The stew contained all fresh and seasonal ingredients, including eggplant, kale and heirloom tomatoes. The next day, the schools enjoyed the soup and the hard work they put into making it.

“These events create excitement and enthusiasm in the school community, teach young people more about where food comes from, and encourage them to try new foods,” stated Colleen Million, who is the director of the charter school.

The purpose of the s’Cool Food Initiative is to help reform the school lunch programs all over the county with Culinary Bootcamps. Culinary Bootcamps are intensive training programs that last week long in the schools’ cafeterias to help promote meals cooked from scratch. Junior Chef Days help to engage the children in the preparation of the meals, and Cool Gardens teach kids about the growing of fresh food, all while meeting the state’s specific educational standards.

Both schools were awarded a grant this past summer from the Orfalea Foundation for new cooking facilities and equipment for use with the joint lunch program. For favorites like pizza, staff are now making the homemade version using wheat bread and fresh produce out of the student garden. Fresh healthy vending choices can help kids make the right decisions when it comes to their meals.

“Bad eating habits can translate into obesity and other health issues down the road for these students. By involving them in the process, they love the end result and you don’t have to twist any arms to get them to eat vegetables,” Martin said.

Martin, who is a consultant working for the Orfalea Foundation, is in the process of introducing the Junior Chef program to schools statewide. She has already implemented the fresh vending program into seven schools in the county this year, as well as the 30 that participated last year.

According to one parent, Alice Taylor, her daughter Cameron was a very picky eater before the new program was introduced. Now though, she has a much better attitude towards trying new foods. “She’s choosing more vegetables and willing to try new things. It amazed me to see her eating the ratatouille,” Taylor said.