A lack of whole grains, vegetables and fruits in children’s diets are causing health problems of epic proportions, noted Kristin Wharton, school nurse and State Health Improvement Program (SHIP) Coordinator.
Thatand a lack of exercise have led to an increase in diabetes throughout the country. “Last year more than 74 billion dollars was spent in the U.S. on diabetes, more than on cancer and heart disease,” said Heidi Kirk, a member of the Cook County School’s Wellness Committee.
“We also know that there is a clear link between student health, student nutrition and student achievement,” Wharton added.
Wharton and Kirk’s statements came at the July 21 School District 166 meeting held at the Jane Mianowski Conference Center.
During the 2009-2010 school year, Wharton headed up the District Wellness Committee.
“This year, our Wellness Committee has remained focused on creating a school environment where it is easy for students and staff to make healthy choices. We welcomed a new head cook, new superintendent, and an opportunity to supercharge our existing efforts through a partnership with the State Health Improvement Program (SHIP) grant,” Wharton said.
Nutrition standards recently passed in Congress are very different from current ones, but will not be implemented until 2011/2012.
“These new guidelines for school meals reflect our current policy for “competitive foods” (a la carte). Doctors and researchers agree on the harmful effects of high levels of sodium, saturated fats, trans fats and a diet low in vegetables, fruits and whole grains—all of which are addressed in the new standards,” said Wharton.
All told the Wellness Committee met 13 times last year and had 6-20 people present at each meeting. According to Wharton, there is also an active support list of 32 people.
The SHIP grant runs through next school year and then runs out. School board member Rod Wannebo said he supports the program and asked superintendent Beth Schwarz if she thought the board should budget some money to keep it in place when the grant runs out.
“The SHIP grant is used to develop programs and investigate best possible ways to run these programs once the grant runs out,” said Schwarz, adding, “We are committed to the Wellness program and will continue working with them after the grant runs out.”
Part of the Wellness Committee’s focus was also on safe routes to school. More than 100 children attended a Bike Safety Rodeo hosted by the Safe Routes to School group in May and volunteers spent a full day at Sawtooth Elementary in the spring teaching bicycle safety. The emphasis of this group is to get kids to walk— or bike—to school and not get rides back and forth from their homes.
The Wellness Committee grew out of a 2006 school board policy calling for the school district to “engage students, parents, teachers, food service professionals, health professionals and other interested community members in developing, implementing, monitoring and reviewing district wide nutrition and physical activity policies.”
School board members Leonard Sobanja and Eric Kemp asked Wharton why there wasn’t more emphasis on physical activity in her report.
“We (the committee) are prepared to look more at that next year. Thisyear our focus was on nutrition,” Wharton said.
Sobanja said an intramural program or an activity hour should be set aside during the school day for students who don’t play extracurricular sports. He asked superintendent Beth Schwarz to work with the Wellness Committee and see if this is possible to set up in the future. Schwarz said she would take a look at the possibilities and get back to the board.
One of the Wellness guidelines includes having healthy options for kids for snack and lunch.
“We continue to work on improving school nutrition. New ways of thinking about school food requires time invested by food service staff, as they re-think recipes, menus, product sources, work flow and balance a commitment to higher national standards and the bottom line of the budget,” Wharton said.
Part of the SHIP grant was used to send school lunch department head Linda Bockovich to training for the new Wellness guidelines. Wharton said that Bockovich and her staff did a great job this year, and that her committee would continue to work with the kitchen staff to continue the progress.
School Board member Mary Sanders introduced a resolution praising Wharton and the members of the Wellness Committee for their hard work and commitment to ensuring the health of ISD 166 students and staff. Theresolution passed unanimously.
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