Nutritious fare is tough sell in schools

Lucrative fast-food contracts, plus students' taste for sugar and grease, thwart efforts to promote healthy eating

CAROLINE ALPHONSO

Jan.20, 2007 Globe and Mail

ANNAPOLIS VALLEY, N.S., AND TORONTO — Colin Sneyd sits at a crowded lunch table eating his sliced chicken breast, cheese, carrot sticks and apple. As he sips a small box of milk, a friend across the cafeteria table inhales a mound of gravy-soaked poutine. Another snacks on a bag of chips, washed down with a can of pop.

Behind the counter, a worker at Toronto's Northern Secondary School slits open bags of frozen fries, plunging them into boiling oil.

"People just have fries for lunch," says Colin, a slight 15-year-old who brings his own packed lunch to school. "I think it's kind of ridiculous. I don't think they need to serve fries. If you're trying to get kids to eat healthier, you should serve them only nutritious food."

Colin may be an unusual teenager, but Northern's sugar-and-grease-filled fare is all too typical of many schools across the country, according to a Globe and Mail survey. Of the 74 boards that responded to the national sounding:

8 per cent reported that none of their high schools serve French fries;

93 per cent allow hot-dog days or pizza days;

74 per cent said their schools sell pop (six boards did not respond), 72 per cent sell candy bars (five boards did not respond), and 77 per cent sell chips (four boards did not respond);

30 per cent said all their schools offer nutrition counselling.

In other words, while they talk a good line about healthy fare and food-education programs, most schools are nutritional wastelands. Worse yet, many boards make no apologies, saying they are merely giving students what they want.

Catherine Moraes, senior manager of business development and nutrition services at the Toronto District School Board, says the board does make sure that students have a healthier option in the cafeteria. But she doesn't believe eliminating junk food is the answer.

"If we disregard what they're looking for, they'll leave the school property at lunchtime," Ms. Moraes says. "They'll go to hot-dog vendors, they'll go to local convenience stores where there's no hope of finding a healthier option."

Nutritionists aren't impressed with this kind of thinking, especially from educators.

"If we're really serious about fostering healthy habits in our future generation, then we need to take more action," says Leslie Beck, a dietitian and columnist for The Globe. "We can't just do this lip service any more."

"I would hope that schools would take the high road," adds Rhona Hanning, an associate professor in health studies at the University of Waterloo, "that they would be an example of healthy living, and that kids would have the opportunity to practise the nutrition and healthy-living messages that they're getting."

In an ideal world, the dire statistics on children's health would be a wake-up call for schools to toss the deep fryer. The overweight/obesity rate among adolescents aged 12 to 17 stands at 29 per cent -- more than doubling between 1978 and 2004, according to Statistics Canada. And the younger a child becomes heavy, the greater the risk of health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and some forms of cancer.

To be sure, children are not eating well. A mere 14 per cent of those between 9 and 12 consume four or more servings of vegetables and fruit a day, studies show, and about one-third of Ontario students drink pop daily. While some provincial governments are taking steps to ban junk food in schools, those changes are coming slowly.

The British Columbia government has introduced "voluntary guidelines" to eliminate candies and sugary drinks from schools by 2009. Manitoba, too, has put forward guidelines, but is not banning outright the sale of greasy and sugary foods.

Nova Scotia is one of the most progressive provinces, outlining a three-year plan to wean children off junk food, with ice cream, chips and pop off the menu this month. In Ontario, junk food has been purged from vending machines only in elementary schools, but hot-dog days are still allowed; high schools continue to sell greasy fare.

Indeed, The Globe survey found that, while the sale of junk food may be waning in elementary schools nationally, little if anything has changed in middle and high schools.

On this particular day in Northern's cafeteria, the special is shepherd's pie with vegetables or salad. There are some sandwiches and salad as well off to the side. But more tempting options with less nutritional content stare students in the face: hamburger patties, greasy French fries (spicy or plain), poutine and pizza. The vending machines offer a choice of pop or other sugary drinks.

In her practice, Ms. Beck said when she visits the schools, spotting a healthy meal on the menu is like finding Waldo.

"Nutrition and food and healthy eating and physical fitness are important life skills that kids need to learn," she says. ". . . The choices in the cafeteria are part of the students' education during the day, for sure."

Mary McKenna, associate professor in kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick and a registered dietitian, says the problem is complex.

"On the basis of public health, no, we're not acting fast enough," she says. "On the basis of what schools are prepared to accept as part of their responsibilities for making improvements, I'm not sure we could move much faster without a significant backlash."

Industry, after all, has done a superb job of enticing cash-strapped schools with contracts worth millions of dollars if they're allowed to wheel in their vending machines and sell their food in the cafeteria.

When schools sign on, they enter into revenue-sharing agreements with the company, and spend the resulting funds on everything from updating school computers to buying library books and team uniforms. And as education budgets tighten, schools say they are left with little choice but to make these lucrative deals.

Calla Farn, a spokeswoman with Refreshments Canada, the main trade association representing non-alcoholic-beverage companies, defends the industry's practice. She says that industry has been proactive in modifying what is sold in schools, especially as parents increasingly fret about kids' widening waistlines.

Elementary schools signing new contracts or renewing existing ones are only permitted to sell fruit juices, bottled water and no-fat and low-fat milk in their machines, she says. High schools, however, can still offer diet soft drinks.

"It's important to understand that it's the school and the school board that approach the beverage company and ask them to provide partnership proposals," Ms. Farn says. "The schools then decide which partnership agreement works best for them. So it's the schools that make the decisions and they are in the driver's seat."

The sad truth is that even when parents try to change the menu at their school boards, they're in for a struggle.

Caroline Whitby, a mother of two, has been at it for almost a decade. The program manager of the health-promoting schools project at the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board in Nova Scotia drives between schools, advising principals on how to change their cafeteria menus and rid their vending machines of junk food.

At least now she has the backing of the provincial government, which has implemented a three-year plan to phase out food and beverages of low nutritional value. The Globe survey found that 100 per cent of Nova Scotia boards have banned pop this school year, up from 20 per cent in the previous year. Chips, too, have been banished (as opposed to Ontario, where 93 per cent of boards say their schools sell them).

"Things take time," Ms. Whitby said. "But the movement is there."

Take the case of Port Williams Elementary, a Nova Scotia school of 242 pupils where, almost a decade ago, the lunch menu consisted of hamburgers, pizza, fried chicken and hot dogs.

Ms. Whitby led the charge. Her motto: "Let's keep it simple. Let's keep it fresh. Let's keep it non-processed."

There was some resistance at first; a couple of parents were reluctant to change the menu. But Ms. Whitby said that through school-wide meetings and food taste-tests with children, she won them over.

Today, small hands drop their loose change and reach over the cafeteria counter for bags of raw vegetables (broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and celery), apple slices, sunflower seeds, boiled eggs, and tuna melts on whole wheat bread.

The school's physical-education teacher has seen fitness levels increase. And principal Cathy Woodford is quick to point out that not only are pupils more alert in class, but there are "fewer chubby children."

But can Port Williams be replicated? Can schools offer only healthy options?

Alison Bell, chef instructor at David Thompson Secondary School in Invermere, B.C., is doing her part. Despite the jumble of fast-food joints in town, the students in Ms. Bell's class prepare lunches of butternut squash and apple soup and chicken stir-fry with steamed rice to sell in the student-run cafeteria.

If fries are served, don't count on a deep fryer -- Ms. Bell did away with it, teaching students to cut up potatoes or yams and bake them in the oven.

"There are ample, ample, ample opportunities for them to have other choices of foods in their life," she said. "But not in here."

If it can be done -- albeit in very few cases across the country -- why is it so difficult at a school like Northern?

The students learn about good eating habits in their food and nutrition classes. "It's . . . important for me to get them to eat properly and be happy with who they are," says Jenni Marr, a family studies teacher.

But once the lunch bell tolls, and students step out of their classrooms and walk down to the basement cafeteria, Ms. Marr's teachings seem almost ironic. Student after student carries baskets of fries to their lunch tables. There are no hamburger patties or pizzas left behind.

"Those are empty calories," lectures a cashier to a boy whose lunch consists of a can of Pepsi, a bag of Skittles and French fries.

"I like it," he replies, shrugging.

It's another typical lunch hour in Canadian schools.

By the numbers

29 per cent

Proportion of adolescents who are overweight or obese

14 per cent

Portion of children between nine and 12 years of age who have four or more servings of vegetables and fruit a day

25 per cent

Percentage of vegetables eaten by children that are French fries

33 per cent

Portion of Ontario students in Grades 4 to 8 who consume soft drinks daily

25 per cent

Portion of Grade 6, 8 and 10 students who consume candy and chocolate bars daily

SOURCES: STATISTICS CANADA, HEART & STROKE FOUNDATION OF CANADA, CALL TO ACTION: CREATING A HEALTHY SCHOOL NUTRITION ENVIRONMENT