It seems like we are getting hit from all sides from our doctors, medical researchers, health insurers, the school nurse and the county health commissioner to the United States Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and every news outlet you can imagine. We are in poor shape!
The USDA transformed the Food Guide Pyramid into MyPlate this year believing that might be the answer to nutrition education. But since the pyramid, with more detailed information, didn’t accomplish anything, I don’t have much hope for the plate. It’s not that the information isn’t helpful, it’s that it won’t be used.
If we understand nothing else from the symbol, I wish we could get the message that fruits and vegetables should take up half the space on a plate. With recognition of that one fact AND putting it into daily practice, we could solve the most important health problem plaguing the US today - obesity.
All scientific-based research on the subject of healthy weight individuals shows fruit and vegetable consumption higher when compared to the daily intake of overweight or obese individuals.
And not only have our nation’s adults expanded their girth, our children, understandably, are following our lead. There are more overweight and obese children today than ever in our history.
Combining this information with national trends about restaurant meal consumption frequency and selections, the decline of the family meal, and the national economy, nutrition and health experts have been watching produce consumption steadily decline.
So, what’s the answer to my plate, my waist, my wallet and my kids? Nutrition education! This is one subject where you’d love to hear your student say, “I ate my own homework!”
Practically every school subject is ripe for nutrition education. The math class could study fractions with recipes, the art class could study botanicals while social study classes can learn about climate and geography of a country by studying its food. Nutrition is a study of science which spans biology and chemistry with a bit of psychology thrown in. An econ class might study agribusiness, food subsidies and perhaps food marketing. For the green thumbs or green thumb wannabes, an after-school club might study the garden’s seasons.
When I happened across the Veggiecation website, I knew our school had to have the opportunity to get acquainted with it. Instead of complaining about the school lunch, we had the chance to make the lunchroom another classroom for our kids. A food lab if you will.
Young people, like most adults, don’t like change or the unfamiliar and food is no exception. If you haven’t been exposed to sweet potatoes (other than in a pie, perhaps), how would you know what they tasted like? Could some junior gardeners, get some plants started? Even in our zone 5, we think our school can grow produce good enough to...well, eat!
And that’s our plan. We’ll be using the posters with fabulous artwork in our cafeteria, we’ll add some new produce “adventures” onto our trays. We’re planning to feature one vegetable each month and offer up tastes from the recipe book for our students to try; we think this non-threatening approach to increased exposure to vegetables will lead to increased acceptance, over time. Our school serves lunch from K-12 and we think Veggiecation will be useful for all ages.
We’ll get a few seedlings started and keep our parents informed of our efforts in nutrition education. In this way, we’re hoping that our Veggiecation homework results in more meals at home including more vegetables and fruits. We think this will help develop more diverse palates which will serve our kids well, for a lifetime.
Our plate, our waists, our wallets, our kids, we’ll all benefit from more veggies.
Marcia Crawford, MS, RD is a nutrition educator, blogger at MarciaCrawford.net . Her experience has been broad from corporate wellness to clinical settings to college campus. Marcia serves on her local school board and volunteers for the McMillen Center for Health Education. She is married with one son who enjoys his veggies!
