Getting Creative About Fighting Childhood Obesity
 |
Berkeley Schools - LeConte
Elementary |
With obesity and related diseases threatening an ever-greater number
of children, one of the biggest challenges facing society is how
to encourage kids to eat more healthfully. PCRM has long been active
in this arena by encouraging vegetarian and vegan options in schools
through its Healthy
School Lunches Campaign. This fall, the nutrition department
added a new component to the program—the first-ever Golden
Carrot Awards recognizing those foodservice professionals who
are doing an exceptionally creative job of promoting good nutrition
in the schools.
An incentive to go veg
PCRM awarded the grand prize to Berkeley Unified, a district serving
nearly 9,000 students in California, for providing its students
with lots of vegetarian options and teaching kids about the importance
of good nutrition.
The second prizes went to the Los Angeles Leadership Academy, a
charter school in one of L.A.’s poorest neighborhoods; the
Ross School, a private school on Long Island; and Fairfax County
Public Schools in Virginia. These and the six schools that received
an honorable mention have devised some clever ways to promote good
nutrition, including replacing vending machines with big bowls of
free fruit and teaching kids to grow and harvest their own vegetables.
Although most foodservice staff have yet to learn that dairy products,
chicken, and fish are not health foods, the winning schools are
all doing a good job of providing vegetarian alternatives, boosting
fruit and vegetable consumption, and reducing fat intake.
For more information about PCRM’s work to promote healthful
foods in the schools, please visit www.HealthySchoolLunches.org
or contact nutrition director Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D., at 202-686-2210,
ext. 354, or alanou@pcrm.org.
PCRM Online, November
2004
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