WASHINGTON — Thousands more children would eat lunches and dinners at school and all school food would become more nutritious under a bill President Barack Obama signed into law Monday, part of an administration-wide effort to combat childhood obesity.
“At a very basic level, this act is about doing what’s right for our children,” Obama said before signing the bill. The ceremony was moved from the White House, where most signings are held, to an elementary school in the District of Columbia to underscore the point.
Besides Obama, the bill also was a priority for his wife, Michelle, who launched a national campaign this year against childhood obesity.
“We can all agree that in the wealthiest nation on earth all children should have the basic nutrition they need to learn and grow and to pursue their dreams,” said Mrs. Obama. “Because in the end, nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our children. Nothing,”
The $4.5 billion measure increases the federal reimbursement for free school lunches by 6 cents a meal at a time when many school officials say they can’t afford to provide the meals. The bill will also expand access to free lunch programs and allow 20 million additional after-school meals to be served annually in all 50 states. Most states now only provide money for after-school snacks.
Many Republicans, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have criticized the effort and the fundraiser limits in particular, saying the bill is too expensive and an example of government overreach.
Supporters say the law is needed to stem rising health care costs due to expanding American waistlines and to feed hungry children in tough economic times. Mrs. Obama cited a group of former generals and military officials who have said unhealthy school lunches are a national security threat because weight problems are now the leading medical reason that recruits are rejected.
Not a moment too soon the House passed The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act just two days ago after it passed the Senate in August. This is long overdo as far as I’m concerned and just before the holiday season, it puts school nutrition and our kids on the front burner again. That’s not to say that disconcerting compromises didn’t make for a less than perfect bill, but getting the bill passed is still a victory for kids faced with unhealthy lunches and pangs of unnecessary hunger across the nation.
The House passed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act Thursday. Though the bill isn’t everything that it could be, especially in terms of funding, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. The bill seemed to be going no where until 1,350 organizations ranging from Feeding America to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition to Slow Food USA joined together in a letter to the House of Representatives pleading that we stop putting kids in the middle of partisan politics and get the bill passed, according to Civil Eats.
The bill allocates $4.5 billion for school lunches, an increase of about 6 cents per child. The bill has already been paid for through monies restructured from the food stamp program. It also establishes local wellness policies in schools, which includes standards for nutrition education, physical activity, nutrition guidelines, and a periodic review of wellness policy. Nutritional guidelines will include a focus on vegetables, fruits, low fat dairy, and whole grains with a new emphasis on local sourcing.
The bill passed by a vote of 264 to 157 with 247 Democrats and 17 Republicans voting for the bill. According to the New York Times, the most contentious provision of the bill regulates prices for lunches served to children with family incomes more than $40,793 a year for a family of four.
Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, who is co-chairman of the House Hunger Caucus, had this to say:
Hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin. Highly processed, empty-calorie foods are less expensive than fresh nutritious foods.
Another day, another “uh oh.” The latest kerfuffle? Quantities of lead in bottled juice, juice boxes, and packaged fruit could exceed federal limits for the lunchbox-toting set, according to the Environmental Law Foundation. The Bay Area-based environmental nonprofit, which enlisted the aid of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-certified lab in Berkeley, tested nearly 400 samples from 150 branded products marketed to children, including apple juice, grape juice, packaged pears and peaches (including baby food), and fruit cocktail mixes. The alarming results: 125 out of 146 products—or more than 85%—contained enough lead in a single serving to warrant a warning label under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, better known as Prop. 65.
ELF has dispatched notices to law-enforcement officials, including California’s attorney-general, district attorneys, and the affected manufacturers, retailers, and distributors. The notices start a clock for the companies to either bring themselves into compliance with Prop. 65 or to place “clear and reasonable warnings” on the food packages. If, at the end of 60 days, no law enforcement agency pursues prosecution, ELF will file a formal suit.
Until then, we’ll be squeezing our own fruit here at Inhabitots HQ. And chugging plenty of water.
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Cheri Charles, left, garden coordinator at Grizzly Hill School, instructs third- and fourth-grade students at the school’s garden in hopes of getting the children to connect with where their food comes from.
Submitted photo
It’s an all-too-common dilemma for any parent striving to give their school-age children healthy meals. Even if you serve nutritious food at home, the lure of the cafeteria can prove irresistible come lunchtime.
And for most students, the choices are not going to be particularly healthy. Pizza, nachos, burgers, chicken tenders, burritos, tuna salad or chicken patty on a bun — these are the usual suspects, and fruit or salad often are nothing but an afterthought.
English chef Jamie Oliver — whose “Food Revol- ution” shined a reality-TV spotlight on the state of the nation’s lunchrooms — has served as clear inspiration for Grizzly Hill School in North San Juan, whose new garden coordinator is partnering with the school’s cook to go all-organic in the kitchen.
“It’s been a goal of ours to have food grown on our campus by our students that supplements our lunch program,” said Principal Joan Little.
Because the school is so small and the parents are “adamant” about having nutritious meals prepared on-site, Grizzly Hill already uses a lot of organic ingredients in the kitchen, Little said.
Grizzly Hill School parents and volunteers started the garden last year, planting strawberries, tomatoes and cucumbers.
“One thing we noticed is that after outside activities, the kids would go and graze,” Little said. “They enjoyed it a lot.”
Now, with the hire of garden coordinator Cheri Charles, the school has a program that will “incorporate education on nutrition and give student more opportunities to grow food for their consumption,” Little said.
Grizzly Hill cook Debbie Gomez’s goal is to be able to serve all organic and local produce and create the highest-quality food for the students.
“I’m going to join Jamie Oliver’s food revolution!” she said.
More than 65 percent of the Grizzly Hill students qualify for free and reduced lunch — and for many, this is the only balanced meal they get in the day.
Gomez is working with Charles to use some of the produce from the garden for the cafeteria. She hopes to increase the production, so the cafeteria can host a salad bar for the students.
So far, the students have responded positively, Gomez said.
“When I first started, they wouldn’t eat anything green,” she said. “It took awhile, but they’re asking for seconds on salad now.”
Charles has a long history with gardening and, in particular, with teaching kids how to connect with gardening.
She started running elementary school gardens in 2005, in Mendocino County, where every school in the county currently has a successful school garden program.
The first garden program she started was part of an internship while getting her bachelor’s degree in ecological agriculture at New College of California.
“While learning about school gardens and nutrition, I came to the realization that a lot of kids are completely disconnected to their food, how it grows and where it comes from,” Charles said.
During her first year of school, Charles attended as many trainings, workshops and conferences on school garden topics as she could find.
She was very active in the development of the Willits Economic Localization Food Group, where they focused on food security and local food education.
Charles and her husband decided to relocate to raise their son closer to his grandparents, so they moved to Nevada County. She took the first couple of years raising her son and exploring other avenues of work.
However, she still had a strong desire to connect kids to their food and started working as the Grizzly Hill School garden coordinator in December.
Grizzly Hill School already had a well-established garden site put in by parents and volunteers, so Charles has been working closely with Mondy Kowal, one of the dedicated parents and a school board member, to expand the garden.
They have planted a new orchard space that includes 23 various fruit trees and berry canes.
Charles comes every Monday and presents a short lesson in garden science and/or nutrition. The students then help plant or prepare beds, work with compost or pull weeds.
“It’s exciting to see the students participate in growing food, making healthy food choices and taking responsibility for the future of the Grizzly Hill School campus,” she said.
Charles also has created a school campus design that is modeled after the Life Lab Gardens at UC Santa Cruz and the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley.
The design incorporates a California native plant garden, culinary and medicinal herbs, butterfly gardens, a flower maze, a fruit orchard and the existing food garden.
The goal is to have the classes use their campus as an outdoor learning environment for all subjects.
Staff writer Liz Kellar contributed to this report.
Cheri Charles, left, garden coordinator at Grizzly Hill School, instructs third- and fourth-grade students at the school’s garden in hopes of getting the children to connect with where their food comes from.
Submitted photo
It’s an all-too-common dilemma for any parent striving to give their school-age children healthy meals. Even if you serve nutritious food at home, the lure of the cafeteria can prove irresistible come lunchtime.
And for most students, the choices are not going to be particularly healthy. Pizza, nachos, burgers, chicken tenders, burritos, tuna salad or chicken patty on a bun — these are the usual suspects, and fruit or salad often are nothing but an afterthought.
English chef Jamie Oliver — whose “Food Revol- ution” shined a reality-TV spotlight on the state of the nation’s lunchrooms — has served as clear inspiration for Grizzly Hill School in North San Juan, whose new garden coordinator is partnering with the school’s cook to go all-organic in the kitchen.
“It’s been a goal of ours to have food grown on our campus by our students that supplements our lunch program,” said Principal Joan Little.
Because the school is so small and the parents are “adamant” about having nutritious meals prepared on-site, Grizzly Hill already uses a lot of organic ingredients in the kitchen, Little said.
Grizzly Hill School parents and volunteers started the garden last year, planting strawberries, tomatoes and cucumbers.
“One thing we noticed is that after outside activities, the kids would go and graze,” Little said. “They enjoyed it a lot.”
Now, with the hire of garden coordinator Cheri Charles, the school has a program that will “incorporate education on nutrition and give student more opportunities to grow food for their consumption,” Little said.
Grizzly Hill cook Debbie Gomez’s goal is to be able to serve all organic and local produce and create the highest-quality food for the students.
“I’m going to join Jamie Oliver’s food revolution!” she said.
More than 65 percent of the Grizzly Hill students qualify for free and reduced lunch — and for many, this is the only balanced meal they get in the day.
Gomez is working with Charles to use some of the produce from the garden for the cafeteria. She hopes to increase the production, so the cafeteria can host a salad bar for the students.
So far, the students have responded positively, Gomez said.
“When I first started, they wouldn’t eat anything green,” she said. “It took awhile, but they’re asking for seconds on salad now.”
Charles has a long history with gardening and, in particular, with teaching kids how to connect with gardening.
She started running elementary school gardens in 2005, in Mendocino County, where every school in the county currently has a successful school garden program.
The first garden program she started was part of an internship while getting her bachelor’s degree in ecological agriculture at New College of California.
“While learning about school gardens and nutrition, I came to the realization that a lot of kids are completely disconnected to their food, how it grows and where it comes from,” Charles said.
During her first year of school, Charles attended as many trainings, workshops and conferences on school garden topics as she could find.
She was very active in the development of the Willits Economic Localization Food Group, where they focused on food security and local food education.
Charles and her husband decided to relocate to raise their son closer to his grandparents, so they moved to Nevada County. She took the first couple of years raising her son and exploring other avenues of work.
However, she still had a strong desire to connect kids to their food and started working as the Grizzly Hill School garden coordinator in December.
Grizzly Hill School already had a well-established garden site put in by parents and volunteers, so Charles has been working closely with Mondy Kowal, one of the dedicated parents and a school board member, to expand the garden.
They have planted a new orchard space that includes 23 various fruit trees and berry canes.
Charles comes every Monday and presents a short lesson in garden science and/or nutrition. The students then help plant or prepare beds, work with compost or pull weeds.
“It’s exciting to see the students participate in growing food, making healthy food choices and taking responsibility for the future of the Grizzly Hill School campus,” she said.
Charles also has created a school campus design that is modeled after the Life Lab Gardens at UC Santa Cruz and the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley.
The design incorporates a California native plant garden, culinary and medicinal herbs, butterfly gardens, a flower maze, a fruit orchard and the existing food garden.
The goal is to have the classes use their campus as an outdoor learning environment for all subjects.
Staff writer Liz Kellar contributed to this report.
Fund healthy school lunches, but don’t cut food stamps and ag conservation
Better school lunch is essential and we fully support the new Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act! But to pay for the new school lunch programs, both the President and Senate Agriculture Committee want to cut $3.8 billion from environmental and food stamp programs secured in the 2008 Farm Bill.
This is illogical! Healthy food and farmlands are equally important and directly linked. Asking our representatives to choose healthy school lunch over better farms and nutrition for the poor is bad for the nation’s health.
We can fix the problem before it’s too late. Join us in asking President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi, and two House committees (Education & Labor and Ways & Means) to find different sources of funding.
Sign the petition below to call for fully funded healthier food for our kids and poor families AND environmental programs that protect water, soil and air. Each resource is essential for an abundant, safe and nutritious food supply.
Now is the best moment to influence key leaders! We need your help today!
I urge you to fully fund environmental and nutrition assistance programs as passed in the 2008 Farm Bill AND the improved nutrition programs outlined in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Healthy food and farmlands are equally important and directly linked. Harming farms to feed kids is a contradiction. Instead of cutting the Farm Bill budget to pay for improved nutrition for kids and poor families, I urge you to find funding in areas that will not negatively impact public health. Please continue building momentum for a healthier America by improving nutrition and our environment.
This petition has a goal of 10000 signatures 1-25 of 1916 signatures
he Senate Agriculture Committee approved Senator Blanche Lincoln’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act today, endorsing a plan to improve school lunch programs.
The Senate Agriculture Committee approved Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln’s child nutrition act, entitled the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.
A step forward in the efforts to improve national school lunch standards, Senator Lincoln said that the act intends to help the over 30 million children who participate in the National Lunch Program throughout the country and the more than 10 million kids participate in the National School Breakfast Program. Over 60% of these children receive free or reduced meals and depend on the food offered at school for a majority of their nourishment.
In light of these statistics and the growing concern for the state of American children’s health, Senator Lincoln and school lunch reform advocates see the new child nutrition legislation as a step in the right direction in addressing the childhood obesity epidemic.
The act was approved unanimously by the Agriculture Committee today and is now headed for debate by the full Senate.
Watch: Senator Lincoln announces the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (March 17th):
What The Act Will Do To Improve School Lunches
If Congress passes this bill, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act will take the following steps to better school lunch programs nationally:
Allow the Agriculture Committee to set and monitor uniform standards for school lunches nationally. The bill would also allow them to regulate ALL food sold in schools, including vending machines items.
The legislation will allocate an additional $4.5 billion in funding to school food programs over the next 10 years. However, this amount is about half of what President Obama initially proposed, a point that has spurred criticism from some food activists, includingSlow Food Blog, U.S.A.
The enforcement of these standards will be a collaborative effort with food and beverage distribution companies and public health officials. The American Beverage Association released a statement endorsing the act, asserting that they are “committed to the health and wellness of its consumers, including American children”.
The bill would provide a 6 percent increase in reimbursements to schools for children in need of free or low-cost lunches. This is an alteration of the reimbursement standards that were originally established nearly 40 years ago.
The bill will also fund the creation and promotion of farm-to-school programs and school gardens to provide fresh produce for school lunches.
Learn More:
Congress Takes Aim at Unhealthy School Lunches (NY Times)
The U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry’s statement
Despite the usual abundance of nearby farms, local farm products are largely missing from most schools’ lunch trays. An emerging “farm to school” movement aims to fix that by matching local farms with local schools, cutting out the middleman, and scaling up students’ nutrition.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has been joined by Senator Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and 12 other senators in introducing legislation to expand farm to school links to boost the use of local farm products in the federally supported school lunch program. Leahy introduced the bill on Tuesday.
Their “Growing Farm To School Programs Act” would provide $50 million in startup funds to local schools and districts, through competitive grants, for technical help in connecting school food service providers with local small- and medium-sized farms for efficient and cost-effective purchases of locally produced foods for school lunchrooms.
Leahy said, “Connecting farms and schools makes sense in so many ways, from economics to nutrition. The school lunch program is a sizable buyer in every community. There is no need to start from scratch. We have pent up demand for fresh local food, and ample local supplies. It’s a natural fit for an untapped market. What we need are the links and logistics to get the ball rolling. This bill is a catalyst to forge these connections and let them flourish.”
Specter said, “The legislation I join Senator Leahy in introducing today is an important bill both for rural development and child nutrition. Not only will it facilitate healthy eating in our school cafeterias, it will promote local food and revitalize our rural economies.”
Leahy, the most senior member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, And Forestry of either party, introduced the bill with 13 cosponsors, including Specter and Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Robert Casey (D-Pa.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Tom Udall (D-N.M.).
The new legislation builds on an effort Leahy and Specter began in 2004 by encouraging farm to school initiatives through provisions they added to that year’s Child Nutrition Reauthorization. The idea has caught on so successfully since then that there is a long backlog of schools wanting to try it. Many face barriers with startup funding, planning, implementation, equipment and technical capacity. More than 130 Vermont schools are experimenting with farm to school programs, and many more are interested. Leahy last year brought U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to visit the Lawrence Barnes Elementary School in Burlington, Vt., where Duncan learned about the school’s partnership with local farmers to provide healthy, locally grown foods and listened to teachers, parents, and students talk about challenges they face.
Leahy said struggling small- and mid-sized farms, ranchers and fishermen would benefit from these reliable and sustainable new markets. Local farmers can offer fresh choices, needing less processing, while offering students the chance to learn how and where their food is grown. Cutting out middlemen and selling directly to nearby schools lets farmers keep more of each dollar, which rebounds through the local economy. While most farmers earn just 20 cents of every food dollar Americans spend, farm to school farmers might earn as much as 60 to 70 cents on each dollar of sales.
In turn, thriving local farms create jobs, maintain agricultural infrastructure, pay taxes and keep working land open. A study in Oregon last year found that every dollar invested in farm to school projects triggered $1.87 in local economic activity. With so many children having never visited a farm and having no concept of where their food comes from, the farm to school programs help connect students directly with farms and the chain through which crops become items at the cafeteria counter.
The farm to school movement also fits neatly into emerging strategies to counter childhood obesity such as First Lady Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ campaign. Today more than 30 percent of American children are obese, and the risks to children’s health are also risks to the economy, with the billions of dollars spent each year treating obesity-related conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The Centers for Disease Control have identified increased fresh fruit and vegetable consumption as one of six top strategies to control and prevent obesity.
Leahy expects the new bill to be incorporated into a major child nutrition reauthorization bill that is nearing action by the Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.).
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited Montana to highlight USDA’s work to strengthen the American agriculture economy and revitalize rural communities through farm-to-school programs.
Secretary Vilsack was joined by Senator Jon Tester at the Longfellow Elementary School in Bozeman for a roundtable discussion with local leaders on how Montana is using farm-to-school Programs to connect schools with local farms to improve the nutrition of school meals, provide agriculture and health education, and support local farmers.
“Strengthening the link between local farmers and school cafeterias is critical to addressing the nutrition issues facing our children,” said Secretary Vilsack. “Supporting farm-to-school programs will increase the amount of produce available to cafeterias and help to support local farmers by establishing regular, institutional buyers. These programs are a win for farmers and ranchers and a win for our children.”
With more than 100,000 public and non-profit private schools across the U.S., from elementary through high school, the farm-to-school movement offers new income opportunities for America’s farmers and ranchers in addition to supporting off-farm jobs in rural America while giving children the opportunity to eat healthy, local fruits and vegetables and to learn to be healthy eaters. USDA is working to make sure that farm-to-school programs are a key part of the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.
USDA has begun to deploy farm-to-school teams across the country to work with local and state authorities, school districts and community partners to gather and disseminate information on infrastructure and best practices for procuring local produce and implementing farm to school activities. Working with education leaders and State and local partners, USDA is promoting farm to school programs and school garden programs to help strengthen the link between consumers and farmers.
The Obama Administration has proposed a historic investment of an additional $10 billion over ten years starting in 2011 that will allow for the improvement of the quality of the School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs, increase the number of kids participating, and ensure schools have the resources they need to make program changes, including training for school food service workers, upgraded kitchen equipment, and additional funding for meal reimbursements for schools that are enhancing nutrition and quality. Additionally, this investment will allow additional fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products to be served in our school cafeterias and an additional one million students to be served the healthy diets in school.
The USDA Farm to School Team has scheduled its first webinar entitled for Wednesday, March 10th at 3:00 pm ET.
More information about USDA’s efforts to improve child nutrition can be found at www.usda.gov .
One More Dollar A Day For Healthy School Food
Tell Your Elected Official To Support The Health Of Our Kids
Millions of kids every day eat lunch, and sometimes breakfast, at school. Yet the U.S. Department of Agriculture invests only $2.68 on average per day for each student’s school lunch. We are growing a generation of Americans who think healthy food is cheap food, and who don’t have the skills to make better decisions about what they eat. This year, Congress has a chance to transform the way America eats when it reauthorizes the Child Nutrition and WIC Act. Join me and lunch box advocates from across the country in asking Congress to invest $1 more dollar in every child.
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