Local schools taking on childhood obesity

By DANIELLE RUSH Tribune staff writer

Kokomo — As the Taylor School Corp. school nurse, Nicki Hammond sees young children with Type 2 diabetes, which was formerly only seen in adults. She helps children who cannot run without getting winded, and children with breathing problems caused by weight.

Hammond is now fighting back, hoping to teach not only the students but also the parents about the need to eat healthy foods and get plenty of exercise.

She is focusing her war on obesity on the primary school, for children in preschool through third grade, hoping it will have a cumulative effect and they will grow up with healthier habits.

“They’re young enough to take the information home. Hopefully, we can get this across not just to the kids, but to the parents.”

Hammond is not alone in her concern about childhood obesity. First lady Michelle Obama has launched “Let’s Move,” a campaign against childhood obesity, with the goal of putting America on track to solve the childhood obesity problem.

And it’s a growing problem.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The prevalence of obesity among children ages 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent in 2008. The prevalence of obesity among adolescents ages 12 to 19 years increased from 5 percent to 18.1 percent.

Michele Obama isn’t the first in the White House to take on the problem — the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports dates back to President Dwight D. Eisenhower — but she’s determined to make real change in a generation.

According to The Associated Press, she plans to promote healthier schools, increase physical activity for kids, improve access to healthy foods and give people more nutrition information.

Judith Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the AP that about one in three American children now is considered obese or overweight.

Hammond said it is important to reach the parents because at primary-school age, the parents are still making the nutritional choices.

“This generation of parents grew up at the drive-thru,” she said. “They don’t know the difference between fruit drink and fruit juice. We supersize everything.”

Hammond said she is building on the Taylor School Corp. wellness plan and has help from Beth Schave, food services coordinator, in making healthier choices available.

Schave said all milk served is 2 percent, and flavored milks other than chocolate will no longer be available because of the sugar added to them. She has a new, local provider of fresh fruits and vegetables, and all bread products are whole-grain. She added that it is hard to provide these healthier foods, with federal reimbursement of less than $3 per child for meals.

That may change, though, with the reauthorization of the federal school lunch program.

The program, which is reauthorized every five years, pays $12 billion yearly to feed breakfast and lunch to school children, according to the AP. That averages to $2.68 per child per day.

The president’s proposed budget calls for an additional $1 billion per year for child nutrition programs, including the federal school lunch program.

Kent Hatcher, director of the office of school and community nutrition at the Indiana Department of Education, said because the lunch program has not yet been reauthorized, he doesn’t know how it will impact what is served in Indiana’s school cafeterias.

Hatcher said, though, as far as meal patterns and food served goes, he thinks the recommendations will be taken from a school lunch report by the Institute of Medicine.

He would like to see the federal reauthorization include financial incentives for schools to offer healthier foods.

Hatcher said one proposal he saw would increase meal reimbursement to schools by 5 to 6 cents per meal to those who meet the new standards.

For the Kokomo-Center Schools, which serves an average of 3,000 free lunches each day, a funding increase of 5 cents per meal would mean $150 per day, or $27,000 more for a 180-day school year.

At 6 cents more per meal, that would mean $180 more per day, or $32,400 for the year.

He also would like to see Indiana be part of the expansion of a pilot program in 13 states to offer an evening meal for children at risk.

“We’d like to see that expanded to all 50 states. That’s one of the things we’ve been excited about,” he said.

Hammond said changes are being made at all Taylor schools to encourage healthy eating and activity. Soft drinks are no longer available to students. Also parents who bring treats for a birthday or holiday celebration are encouraged to bring healthy snacks like carrots and dip, rather than candy or cupcakes, or to bring non-food items like pencils.

She said the primary school has a walking club for children, and the intermediate school now schedules lunch after recess, so children are not hurrying to eat or skipping lunch to get outside to play. She added that teachers are being discouraged from taking away recess time as punishment for poor behavior.

“The ones who are the ‘pistols’ at this age need it the most,” she said, to run off their excess energy.

She also plans to add short nutrition sound bites to the morning announcements during the 2010-2011 school year.

Hammond also plans to send home charts for children and their parents to mark off how many servings of fruits and vegetables they eat each day, how much activity they have and how much time they spend watching TV and playing video games. She hopes those charts will be a wake-up call to the parents.

“We can teach the kids until we’re blue in the face, but they depend on their parents for food,” she said. “I want something that triggers the parents. There is a huge amount of material out there for kids.”

Hammond said she starts to see weight problems in children around third-grade, all the way through high school.

“I’m seeing more overweight adolescents than we did 20 years ago,” she said.

Schave hopes to reach out during the summer, by making free lunches available to children during the summer at Taylor Primary School. The meals will be available to any child up to age 18, no matter where he or she lives.

Schave said she’s working with staff members at Ivy Tech Community College to have presentations during lunch on nutrition, exercise, bicycle safety and other wellness topics.

Hammond said the free meals will be a help, to make healthy food available to the children. She said children from poor homes are more likely to be overweight, because healthy food is more expensive.

“It can be more cost-effective to go to the Dollar General to buy macaroni and cheese than going to the grocery stores,” she said. “Fruits and vegetables are expensive.”

She added that some people think it is a waste giving fruits and vegetables to children, because they won’t eat them. She said, though, she’s brought in apples for classes and “the kids fought over who was going to get the apples, and they ate them.”

Taylor Primary Principal Shannon Richards said she wishes someone had taught her about making wiser food choices when she was young. She’s fought with her weight as an adult, losing 48 pounds this school year, and hopes her young pupils learn from her example.

“I think that catching eating habits young makes a big impression. Kids are sponges. It’s definitely important they learn early what good choices are. Behavior is impacted so much at this age, behavioral changes can be made at this age. With my own health and my own size not being optimal, I can use myself as an example of poor choices and teach them how to change that.”

She finds the cafeteria to be a good forum for teaching about healthy choices, particularly with the healthier options made available.

Hammond said she hopes all of the programs available to the children give them a better chance at healthier lives.

“Obviously I’m not going to end obesity. I just want to make enough difference to give children and parents something to go on. I don’t think parents have all the information.”

• Danielle Rush is the Kokomo Tribune education reporter. She can be reached at 765-454-8585 or danielle.rush@kokomotribune.com.

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