Healthy Kids

Some of you may have heard about the Healthy Kids Act. It is a federal piece of legislation that has forced quite a bit of change on schools in the past couple of years. This year full implementation of this act must be in place. While I do not believe that anyone will disagree with the idea that we need to do what we can to help children lead healthy lives, there is some interesting debate about this legislation. Some of you will find some of the changes we have to make going to far. Others will understand why it is being done.

Senator Tom Harkin has been a leader in the development and passage of these new laws. I remember a few years ago that money was made available to qualifying schools to put fresh fruit and vegetables in front of students for snacks during the school day. At Indianola High School, there were boxes of apples in the hallways for students to pick up and eat on the way to class. At Creston Elementary, students received carrots, celery, broccoli, and cauliflower with ranch dip in the afternoon. The Senator had a lot to do with this, but interestingly, I don’t hear about this much any more.

Now that the act is to be fully implemented, a number of noticeable changes will be in place this year. No carbonated beverages can be sold during the school day. No candy or other restricted items can be sold during the school day as a fundraiser, which includes some of the bake sales groups have had. No pizza parties during the school day. I know that there will be disagreement on a number of the things that we are required to do, and honestly, I’m not sure I agree with all of them. However, it is law and we will input the changes with integrity. The one thing about this that truly bothers me is that while we are required to make all of these changes because of the high levels of childhood obesity in our country, we seem to be the only ones required by law to do so. This is certainly a scary health problem. But I do not believe for a minute that the diets and levels of exercise will change outside the school. In my opinion, there needs to be a much bigger attitude shift in our country. Since schools receive public funds, it is easy for our government to invoke rules on us, and at the same time, nearly impossible to do the same thing in the private sector. And, we are charged with education, and thus it does make sense that we have a role in this effort. However, as long as they give out toys in kid’s meals that are limited in their nutritional value, are we fighting a losing battle? Are there other sectors that can help fight the battle?

We live in a land of plenty and in many respects we have become out own worst enemy when it comes to our health. Too often we do not thing about the consequences of our sedentary lifestyle, yet expect medicine to take care of problems that we have imposed on ourselves. Thinking all of this through, perhaps this is a good first step, but I honestly believe that we are going to need more Jessie Oliver’s to take on this food revolution if we are going to make a difference.