|
|
|
Case Study 1
|
|
Formal Report
|
|
|
|
Cohort D
|
|
2/21/2013
|
|
|
Do
the rise in childhood obesity and the unhealthiness of high school cafeteria
food correlate with each other? One of the largest epidemics in this country is
children being overweight. Parents are here to lead and educate children on the
how it is important to keep our bodies healthy. High school cafeterias take
away the control parents have on their children’s choice of food. We have
developed a new high school lunch menu to ensure children are eating right.
After defining what nutritious foods are we will provide affordable nutritious
food suggestions that we think kids will enjoy at your school. We will explain why
these new options for the lunch menu are better choices for the kids. We believe these choices are ones that the
kids will still like but will also be healthier and better for them. It is important that we make these changes to
the menu because lack of nutrition can cause obesity and is also a cause in
poor academic performance. Along with
these healthy new changes we will be initiating the Let’s Move Campaign
endorsed by First Lady Michelle Obama. This campaign seeks to fight childhood
obesity and encourage a healthy lifestyle. We feel with these new changes and
the addition of the Let’s Move Campaign, we can help student’s live healthier
lifestyles.
Nutrition
in basic standards means providing your body the materials necessary to support
life (Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, n.d.). Many health problems and obesity can
be prevented with a healthy diet. According
to the American Heart Association, one in three children ages two to nineteen,
are overweight and obese. This is an ongoing problem nationwide. School cafeterias offer many appetizing, but
yet greasy, unhealthy food options.
Edwardsville High
School’s main goal is to earn more money, however they should be concerned
about the students’ health. Currently the school offers pizza, burgers,
hot dogs, and fried chicken strips for the main course every day. As a side for the main course they have french
fries and potato chips available to them daily. These foods are artery
clogging, greasy, and extremely unhealthy. By definition, the majority of the
foods that the school currently offers are not nutritious. On the other hand,
the school does offer a salad bar, fruit, and vegetables. Even though the school provides a salad bar
for the students the school officials do not promote these healthy food options
to the students.
Even
when Tom, the principal, got interviewed he said, “We provide a choice. I don't think it’s the school's job to
regulate what kids eat. That's their parents' job.” Tom could not be any more
wrong in this statement. The students spend a majority of their lives at
school. Tom is the one in charge of
these students for much of the day. His
goal is to prepare these individuals for their lives ahead, whether it being
for academics or for healthy lifestyles.
This is the point in their lives when they need to be taught good
healthy habits, and if Tom isn’t pushing them to do it, then necessary changes
are going to be needed.
To
get inside the perspective of the people actually eating the food, we
interviewed a teacher, and a student.
Pam McKenzie is a teacher at Gower high school, which serves the same
types of foods that Edwardsville high school serves. We asked her if she had ever ate food from
the cafeteria, and if how often if so?
She replied, “I have ate cafeteria food on a couple of occasions, but
the food was greasy and unsettling to my stomach disrupting my concentration
for my job.” Following that question we asked her, what are some of the eating
habits of the kids at your school? She
answered, “I have found that kids eat anything and everything, and don’t realize
how bad it is for them.” The final
question Pam was asked was, if healthier food options were available would you
be open to eating the school lunches again?
Pam’s answer was, “if I am able to eat healthy foods for the cheap
price, then yes, I would definitely be open to eating the school lunches again”
(P. McKenzie, personal communication, February 16, 2013).
We
also interviewed Ben O’Dwyer on the food at his school. The first question that we asked him was what
type of food do you buy from your cafeteria?
He replied, “I buy bosco sticks, pizza, popcorn chicken, pasta salad,
ice cream, fries, and bread bowls.” The
follow up question was do you think these foods give you a good energy level to
complete your day? He responded,
“Sometimes the food upsets my stomach and I feel like I need to take a nap
after I eat.” The last question we asked
him if him and his classmates had the opportunity to purchase healthier foods,
would they? His answer was, “I think
that if given that opportunity many of us would take that advantage of these
options but only if the food seems appetizing” (B. O’Dwyer, personal
communication, February 18 2013).
After
doing the interviews with Pam and Ben we have learned about the inside
perspective about the food at high schools.
We have found that students would be willing to change their school’s
menu to healthier selections. We also
learned that more people would partake in school lunches, such as the other
teachers. This can benefit the school
because more people would be purchasing their lunches.
Our
new approach in promoting good life choices for the students of Edwardsville
High School starts in the cafeteria. As stated earlier the cafeteria currently
offers pizza, burgers, hot dogs, and fried chicken strips every day. Those
foods are not nutritious at all to the students. We will be using OrganicLife
smart food service to restructure the school’s menu. Currently, OrganicLife is
the leading foodservice provider of healthy lunches in the state of Illinois
(OrganicLife, 2012). With this new program, cafeteria food will be made with whole
grains, fruits and veggies. The new food will be better quality, is better
tasting, and will be better for you. At
OrganicLife the “culinary development team is composed of 4-star chefs and nutrition
experts who are passionate advocates of healthy eating and happy children”
(OrganicLife, 2012). In order to be
served at this school, the food has to meet a certain amount of calories and
nutritional values. If the food exceeds any of the requirements, it will not be
served to the students. Our new lunch program will have nutrition experts to
make sure that students are getting healthy portions of nutrition in their
lunches. This shows that OrganicLife is serious when it comes to healthy food
selections, and we believe this food service needs to be applied to the school
cafeteria.
Each
day of the week there will be two healthy options students can choose from. The school previously has made beneficial
additions such as the salad bar, and we plan to utilize it more
efficiently. We will do this by having a
different type of salad each day, and will advertise it across the school each
day. This hopefully will attract students
to the salad bar, which will encourage them to eat healthier. One might think of healthy food as not being
as appetizing or flavorful, but when one sees the new menu we have created,
they will think otherwise.
A
couple of options that are on this new and improved menu are Memphis dry rubbed
barbecue chicken with herb roasted potatoes, meatballs with cavatappi pasta and
tomato basil sauce, Italia incredible four cheese lasagna, and roasted turkey
with country gravy and creamy whipped potatoes. As one can see these new
options sound mouthwatering and delicious. Our menu provides much more variety
of foods for the students. For example,
at this point in time the menu consists of greasy American food; whereas our
new menu is ethnically diverse. The new
menu will offer students choices between Mexican, Asian, Italian, and American
foods.
This
can benefit the lunch program because students can experience their own
culture’s food as well as experience other culture’s foods as well. The kids will see this new menu and will be
looking forward to lunch every day. The
best part about these new appetizing choices is that the student’s get the
great tasting food they want as well as the healthy choices we feel they need.
This will encourage them to develop healthy habits for the future.
Recently
there was a vote to remove the candy and soda machines from the school. This is a good idea to prevent unhealthy
habits from students; however the vending machines should be kept as long as
they have healthy selections to choose from.
Instead of having chips and candy, they should have granola bars and
peanuts or pretzels. Also, instead of
having soda and energy drinks, they can be replaced with water and Gatorade. Many students like to have the opportunity to
purchase nutritional snacks to give them a boost of energy to finish the day
strong. This way the school will still be able to
profit from students and keep a healthy environment for them.
With
changing the lunch program at Edwardsville high school it is essential to
provide other healthy opportunities to get students involved. The Let’s Move Campaign was created by
Michelle Obama in 2010 (Let’s Move, 2013). The campaign is a perfect
opportunity to stimulate healthy living around the school. This campaign has a
comprehensive, collaborative, and community-oriented initiative that addresses
all of the various factors that lead to childhood obesity. Their slogan is
“Keep Calm, and Let’s Move!”
We
will involve the school with this campaign by having the students participate
in various events and competitions. One of the competitions that involve the
students will be a weight competition. The students will have the opportunity
to pursue the competition by signing up at the beginning of the year.
Throughout the year the students will receive prizes based on how much weight
they lost. The prizes will gradually increase in value the more weight a
student loses. By creating this
competition, students will create a healthy lifestyle in which they can follow
for the rest of their lives. The Let’s Move Campaign promotes physical activity
such as playing football and running. By doing these activities the kids will
have fun and get their bodies in shape. With the right mindset and attitude the
kids can, and will change their unhealthy lifestyles with the help from the
Let’s Move Campaign.
At
this point one might be asking what the price is going to be for this four star
caliber food options on the menu. We
know that the funding for this proposed alternative menu is a big issue. This is why we made sure that the prices for
these new selections would be reasonable for the consumers. After researching multiple food services, we
found out that OrganicLife is the same price as the current food service at
Edwardsville high school. Therefore the
school will not need funding for the new lunch program. We will be a part of the National School
Lunch Program, so all cash subsidies and food from the USDA will presumably come
our way (Food and Nutrition Service, 2013). The costs of lunch with the new
proposed plan will be two to three dollars. The new program also allows
families with low incomes to receive lunch for free. The OrganicLife program
allows a ten to fifteen cent reimbursement from the department of Agriculture
for every lunch the school sells.
OrganicLife
is costing the school zero dollars to start.
Therefore, we want to fund money into different programs that will allow
students to live healthier lifestyles. There was a worry that the after school
intermural programs would have to be eliminated if we changed the menu, but
since the new proposed menu is not costing any more than the one the school
currently has; we can keep the intermural programs. This will benefit the
student’s health because they will be able to participate in physical
activities as well as eating a healthy lunch. The Let’s Move Campaign will be
built upon the intermural program the school currently has. This will help more
students get involved.
The
only funding this plan will be asking for is for the Let’s Move Campaign, and
putting the healthy snacks in with the vending machines back into the school.
The Let’s Move Campaign has prizes for the students based on how much weight
they lose. We feel that it is a small price to pay for the long term healthy
habits that potentially can be developed. This campaign will need around two
thousand dollars to get started. With this money we can purchases prizes for
the students, as well as advertise the campaign around the school. The vending
machines were also removed from the school.
Therefore,
we will need around five hundred dollars to bring back the vending machines and
replenish them weekly with appropriate healthy snacks.
To
conclude, Edwardsville high school is in a drastic need for a change to its
school lunch program. We have come across
a program called OrganicLife that will not only revamp the school lunch
program, but will not cost any extra money as well. One big change that we want to develop is
first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign. We feel this campaign will get kids to
develop healthy habits. By allowing us
to make these changes this will let us help the students get a foot forward in
the right direction. Many schools across
the nation are changing their programs to help change a generation. It is now Edwardsville high school’s chance
to make a difference and rise to the occasion.
Let me ask you now, are you up to the challenge, or will you continue to
neglect this growing problem?
Works
Cited
American Heart Association. (2013, Feb. 17). At the
Heart of Health is Good Nutrition. Retrieved
Febrary 17, 2013, from http://www.heart.org/heartorg/gettinghealthy
(B. O’Dwyer, personal communication, February 18
2013)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013,
Feb. 18). Adolescent and School Health. Retrieved
February 18, 2013, from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/nutrition/facts.htm
Hellmich, Nanci. (August 8, 2012). School’s
scrambling to serve up healthier lunch choices. USAToday, retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/healthy/story/2012-08- 11/school-lunch-standards/56946390/1
Heuristic. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster’s online
dictionary. Retrieved February 17, 2013, from http://www.mw.com/dictionary/
Let’s Move. (2013, Feb. 18). America’s Move to make
a healthier generation of kids. Retrieved February
18, 2013, from http://www.letssmove.gov
Murray, Sarah. (2005). Understanding Students’
Perceptions of their school’s foodservice. Illinois
State University. The HF Group
OrganicLife. (2013, Feb. 17). Fresh, Healthy,
Organic Food. Retrieved February 17, 2013, from http://www.organiclifeonline.com/index.html
(P. McKenzie, personal communication, February 16,
2013)
United States. Consumer and Marketing Service.
School Lunch Division. (1966). A menu planning guide for Type A school
lunches. Department of Agriculture
No comments:
Post a Comment