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In the leafy surrounds of Kerrisdale, an old-money enclave on Vancouver’s west side, Point Grey Secondary School is losing the junk food war.
Two years ago the student cafeteria revamped its menu to meet British Columbia’s new food regulations for schools. Salads now have reduced-sodium dressing, cookies contain less sugar and potatoes are baked, not fried.
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But when the lunch bell rings, Point Grey students swarm to the neighbouring McDonald’s, 7-Eleven, Frankies Candy Bar, and Flying Wedge, where $3.50 buys a “student combo” of a pizza slice and pop that add up to 900 calories.
Healthier cafeteria fare, such as a $3.50 low-fat chicken wrap, can’t compete, says Glenn Canuel, co-owner of Canuel Caterers, the private company in charge of the school’s food services.
Cafeteria sales at Point Grey have dipped 30 per cent since the province tightened its food rules in 2008, Mr. Canuel says. Now that B.C. schools can no longer sell junk food, “kids are going off campus for it.”
Across Canada, school catering companies are reporting sales losses of 10 to 30 per cent in many regions where candy bars, soft drinks and deep-fried foods have been banned. Schools that share profits from food sales are also taking a hit.
After a decade of nutrition crusaders pushing for healthier food choices, the fight against childhood obesity is more daunting than ever. One in four Canadian children is overweight or obese. From coast to coast, doctors and dietitians are sounding the alarm about the rising health costs that a dangerously overweight country will have to bear. In September, provincial and territorial health ministers – in tandem with federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq – released a framework for action on childhood obesity.
But it may be that students have been left out of the loop, in the rush to educate schools, parent groups and private caterers about new food legislation, says Julie Stephenson, a registered dietitian and food services manager for Surrey School District in British Columbia.
“Students don’t know why things have changed,” she says.
At the provincial level, nutrition standards that eliminate trans fats and reduce sugar and sodium in foods sold in schools are a patchwork effort. Food guidelines are mandatory in British Columbia, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Quebec has prohibited the sale of deep-fried foods and soft drinks on high-school grounds. In Ontario, schools face a deadline of September, 2011, to comply with the province’s new school food and beverage policy.
Other provinces and territories have voluntary standards except the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, which lack formal guidelines.
Schools in British Columbia have made “significant progress” in offering healthy food and beverage choices, according to a review earlier this year by the B.C. Ministry of Education.
But healthy food choices have had unintended consequences. Gas stations and convenience stores are cashing in on students’ discontent, Ms. Stephenson says. “We see local corner stores converting so that they can provide pizza.”
Poor cafeteria sales forced Chartwells Canada, the country’s largest high-school catering operation, to pull out of about a dozen schools in New Brunswick. The losses are due to declining enrolment and stricter food rules, Chartwells president Ross Munro says. “We’re telling 18-year-old kids what they’re going to eat – think about it.”
Despite the exodus from cafeterias, dietitians including Ms. Stephenson support the trend toward school nutrition legislation.
Schools have a responsibility to educate children about nutrition and provide healthy food choices, says Janice MacDonald, communications director for Dietitians of Canada. Ideally, Canada would have national guidelines, she says.
Ms. MacDonald adds that obesity has many causes, included sedentary lifestyles and aggressive marketing of unhealthy foods to children. “We can’t depend on schools to be the complete or only solution.”
Children get hooked on junk food by eating frozen dinners and take-out meals at home, says Paul Finkelstein, a culinary arts teacher at Stratford Northwestern Secondary School in Ontario. A surprising number of kids have cash in their pockets to spend on chips and chocolate bars, he points out. “I blame the parents.”
Role-modelling can go both ways, however. When children learn to prepare dishes such as moussaka at the Screaming Avocado – the café Mr. Finkelstein runs as part of his culinary arts program – many students convince their parents to provide healthier foods at home, he says.
A growing number of teacher-run cafeterias are getting creative. Some school districts have a local Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef who drove junk food out of British schools. Teens are learning to cook from scratch in more than a dozen high-school teaching cafeterias in British Columbia, and Farm to School programs inspired by the locavore movement are taking root across Canada.
As cafeterias get better at developing appealing recipes that comply with provincial standards, students’ palates will adapt to eating less salt, sugar and fat, dietitians say.
Tomorrow’s high-school freshmen won’t remember the deep-frying days, says Donna Bottrell, director of nutrition for Chartwells.
“We see the glimmer of hope in the elementary schools,” she says. “These are going to be different kids.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/heal...
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Any thoughts? Do you think that educating children about food should be the school's responsibility? What do you think is the best way to get children to eat healthier foods?
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Johnny - posted on 10/05/2010
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Well, funny thing, this is MY highschool. Grad '94, GO GREYHOUNDS! I've got to laugh my ass off at the "leafy surrounds of Kerrisdale, an old-money enclave" part though. Too funny. Ah, there's reality and then there is what shows up in the newspaper.
Well, when I went to high school there, it was exactly the same. There have never been any regulations about leaving the school property during breaks in Vancouver high schools, and I don't think, aside from getting junk food, that it's ever been an issue.
When I went there, the cafeteria served terrible crap. People rarely ate there. Greasy fries, those nachos with the fake cheese that you can get at 7-Eleven, chocolate bars. Nothing but junk. And it smelled like old gym socks.
So because the cafeteria food sucked, we always went out. Down the street to McDonalds, across to 7-Eleven and Subway. I ate more meatball subs than any human should ever have digested. And back then, we even had soda pop in the vending machines. I had a Coke at every recess on my way to my locker. We all ate junk in school and out.
My family still lives around there. You do see kids in 7-Eleven & McDonalds. But you see way more running out for sushi or a nice sandwich at the new deli (don't go there between 12 & 12:30, the line is killer). I went for lunch with my dad one day during my mat leave at the mediterrnean place and I saw tons of kids noshing on homous and tabbouleh salads. To me, it actually looks like they are eating BETTER than when I went there. At least they have better choices.
I've got to suspect that even though they are forced to serve "healthy" food in the cafeteria now, that it probably still tastes terrible and smells like gym socks. I'd wager that this isn't really about kids eating junk but is really about the cafeteria contractor hoping for a captive audience for his slop.
And this is NOT a school with an obesity problem. In fact, it's a little bit the opposite. This is just not a place where you see very many obese kids at all, if any. The majority of the school population is Asian (Chinese mostly) and while they may be eating lots of junk like other kids in North America, their waistlines show no evidence of it.
Lastly, I really don't think educating them on it will make all that much difference. When I was there, they taught healthy eating and nutrition in home economics, which we all had to take. It didn't matter, we didn't WANT to eat what the adults wanted us to eat. We wanted to be cool and hang-out outside 7-Eleven.
Johnny - posted on 10/06/2010
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Not the case here at all. Wow, that's really something. No, until they are on school property and school starts, unless otherwise arranged through a before & after school program, they are the parent's responsibility. The school would only be liable if it happen on school time or on school property (including a school bus). If a parent wants their teenager to be supervised before or after school or during the lunch hour off school property, they would have to arrange that (and incur a great deal of teasing on their teen from the other kids).
Johnny - posted on 10/05/2010
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That's good. Our elementary schools have that policy too, and as far as I know, they have been really successful keeping the junk out of the schools.
I need to make it clear that these are high school kids we're talking about, over age 12/13 that can leave school property. I think if they want to run away or something, they could probably find other occasions to do so. If the kids don't show up at class after lunch, the admin is alerted, the parents are called, etc. So it is not as if they are completely unmonitored. It actually happened to my girlfriend last week. Her son decided for the first time to skip school with his friend. She'd heard about it at work by 1:20 and had him tracked down, being picked up by his dad by 1:30. It's not like they're running around without people keeping track of them. But they are on the road to adulthood. It's the proper time for them to learn responsibility and how to show up for class on time. These are teens, not little kids.
I've never heard parents from here requesting or discussing keeping high school kids in lockdown. I'm not sure it would even occur to most people as something that should be done.
Danielle - posted on 10/05/2010
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Ok, I need to ask a question-after being in athletics right before lunch in the heat of the day (it's Texas), you burn a crap load of calories right? Which is great, except that say, you didn't have a good breakfast, and you don't want to hit the mid-afternoon slump (about 1:30/2pm) just in time for that test in Algebra, and guess what? After school you have more practice, so what are we supposed to do? I graduated from HS 3 years ago and even then they were making our portions smaller and making the food "healthier". I hated it. Our 30 min lunch was never enough time because it took 5 min to gt there, at least 10 min to wait in line, and they "pulled" everyone 5 min before the bell so that we could be in class on time...so let's add that up shall we? 5+10+5=20, so we had 10 minutes to eat! On top of that, we never got enough calories because it was "healthier". Now there IS a difference between eating 4 cookies and nothing else, but c'mon people! They stopped making sweet tea, stopped serving anything fried, any pizza-which actually can be healthy if prepared right-our literall 2 inch in diameter burgers were on weat buns and I'm pretty sure the "meat" was made from soy. Not many calories=not a lot of energy. Yes we should eat better...but most of the people who were less healthy just brought food from home. This didn't solve anything! Oh, and our health class did have lessons over eating healthy. I'm sorry but I don't think anything is getting solved this way. Unless you want to ban kids from bringing food (which means you would need to figure out a way for some of those kids to afford paying for lunch) then ease up a little.
Oh something else, along with the lessons on eating healthy, Texas students must have at LEAST 1-2 credits of PE/Athletics. But obesity is on the rise right and the SCHOOLS need to do something about it? Hmmm I wonder why students in athletics keep passing out and/or getting hurt? It's the parent responsibility, not the schools. If they decide not to teach their children about how to eat the right foods, and how much, that's their problem. I know that sometimes I wanted something besides a salad after running for 30 min, I wanted some REAL FOOD daggumit lol.
[deleted account]
I didn't read the whole article...it was long. But why are kid leaving school grounds? Make that against the rules and you have a solution.
And nutrition and cooking classes are a fabulous idea. Along with financial and parenting classes, but that's a different topic.