What is the Connection Between Food in Schools and Our Nation’s Health?

What really grabs my attention about this topic is that on all sides of political spectrum, governmental groups, agencies, and individuals, people want to find a way to serve healthier foods in schools.

A group of retired military officer, ‘Mission Readiness,” ask for higher food standards in schools to decrease obesity for the future of national security. They explore the relationship between what kids eat at school and how well they can perform years later, preparing to serve the country.

In their recent report “Too Fat to Fight,” they highlight some main issues:

• 75% of all young Americans, 17 to 24 years of age, are unable to join the military because they failed to graduate from high school, have criminal records, or are physically unfit
• Being overweight or obese is the leading medical reason why applicants fail to qualify for service

Their preferred solution lies with the school. According to a 2010 Health Affairs article they cite, “80 percent of children who were overweight at ages 10-15 were obese at age 25,” (available here for a fee). Mission Readiness argues that using schools to establish early healthy eating habits is the way to increase health for Americans and increase the amount of eligible candidates for service.

 ‘Too Fat to Fight,’ also addresses the financial benefits of decreasing obesity, inside and outside the military.  After initial ineligible recruits are turned away, obesity still takes a toll financially. The military discharges around 1200 enlistees every year, even before their contracts are up because of weight problems. To recruit and retrain new individuals costs around $50,000 per lost man or woman, totaling more than $60 million dollars a year.

Outside of the military, the report warns that obesity puts financial stress on the health care system. They cite the American Public Health Association, which projects that by the year 2018 we will be spending about $344 billion dollars annually on health care costs related to obesity. It will account for more than 21^% of all health care spending.

The authors outline three suggestions that can alter this negative trend.

• Get the junk food and high-calorie beverages out of our schools by allowing the Secretary of Agriculture to adopt the Institute of Medicine standards for what can be served or marketed in schools.
• Increase funding for the school lunch programs. This funding will help deliver healthier, lower-calorie meals to more children who are eligible and to others from millions of families that purchase the meals. That can help students control their weight now and develop life-long healthy eating habits.
• Support the development, testing and deployment of proven public-health interventions that can deliver the education and encouragement children and parents need to adopt healthier life-long eating and exercise habits.

From Shaping America’s Youth, here are a couple of other resources and ways you can help:

• Look at the Better School Food website, which is dedicated to changing the foods that are fed to our kids in school. Resources include an action plan with different links, events, a blog, school garden suggestions, and info on Wellness Policies.
• Go onto Jamie’s Oliver’s website, where you can sign a petition to make school food better.
• The School Lunch Initiative has recipes (even for food service professionals), curriculum online learning guides, and information on seasonally fresh foods.
• The Institute for Agricultural Trade & Policy, which has news articles, reports, events, other info relating to food and farms in schools.
• Check out this blog: Fed up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project. A teacher in the Midwest who vows to eat student lunches everyday and then write about it to raise awareness.

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Tags: American Public Health Association, Better School Food, childhood obesity, Fed up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project, food revolution, health, health care costs, Institute for Agricultural Trade & Policy, Jamie Oliver, kids, military, Mission Readiness, national security, Obesity, obesity costs 2010, School Lunch Initiative, schools, Shaping America's Youth, Too fat to Fight