Developing healthy attitudes about healthy foods

Despite high rankings for offerings, students and educators say county schools could do better in providing nutritious alternatives

"[As a nurse] I am freaking out because I am seeing statistics on the health of certain populations," said Marchwicki, who worked for 13 years in nursing and health care before spending the past 14 in education. "I think, ‘Oh my God, we are setting up students for diabetes, hypertension, strokes and anything related to excessive blood sugar.'"

Although recent reports have shown Montgomery County Public Schools is offering its students enough healthy food options, there are some, including Marchwicki, who think more can be done to combat what she calls a national epidemic of youth malnutrition.

Fed up with the unhealthy snacks and soft drinks Kennedy students constantly bought from the school's vending machine, Marchwicki set up her own shop last year, selling fruits, water and other nutritious options for the same price she paid for them at a local Magruder's grocery store.

Marchwicki said health curricula lacking in nutrition information and lunch lines lacking healthy options add to the problem.

"If we don't put anything but healthy food [on the menu] and the children have no other options, they will eat healthy food," she said. Putting healthy food next to junk food doesn't solve the problem, she added.

But recent reports from the Washington, D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine – a national nonprofit of physicians and researchers that promotes preventive medicine – have rated MCPS above average in school lunch nutrition.

The organization's annual School Lunch Report Card evaluates 22 elementary school lunch programs from the top 100 largest districts by student population in the country.

In the 2007 report, MCPS was sixth out of the 22 districts and received a B+, mostly for increases in fresh fruit offerings and vegetable side dishes. MCPS also was commended in the report for the nutrition information included on lunch menus sent home with students and its participation in a trial study with the National Soy Board to possibly add soy-based items to menus.

The report said MCPS needs to continue improving after receiving a C- in 2004 and still could include more vegetarian and vegan options.

Beth Hellman, a junior at James Hubert Blake High School and a vegetarian, said she brings her lunch every day because the cafeteria doesn't accommodate her diet.

"It's like fries and neon-colored slushies," she said. "I'd definitely pay for it if there were good options."

MCPS will be included in PCRM's 2008 study, which will be released next month, said Susan Levin, a staff dietician with The Cancer Project, a subsidiary of PCRM.

The Cancer Project released a report this summer on the processed meats offered in school districts across the country. Processed meats were offered in 2 percent of high school lunches, 8 percent in middle school and 13 percent in elementary schools. Consumption of processed meats is linked directly to cancer, Levin said.

"It must be awfully confusing to hear valuable nutrition information in school and then go into the cafeteria and be like, ‘What?'" Levin said, adding that despite MCPS' usually strong showings in lunch, breakfast menus offered processed meats 40 percent of the time.

MCPS lunches must meet national guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A challenge MCPS food services faces is preparing tasty food in healthy ways and getting students to buy it, said Kathy Lazor, director of food and nutrition services and a registered dietician.

"We have to make sure that we balance health and food with a high value of flavor," she said. "We can't give things that just don't taste good and they aren't going to eat it or buy it."

In 2004, MCPS began coordinating the school system's health and physical education curricula in response to increasing trends in child obesity, said Terri McCauley, supervisor of health and physical education for MCPS.

It's important to show the incentives of eating healthy, she said, because it is easy for students to develop bad eating habits.

"The media is slamming you with commercials and packaging and advertising targeting those kids," she said. "… Often they are pressed for time so they grab something quick and cheap."

At Blake on Thursday, Jane Jakubczak, a nutritionist for the Washington Redskins and University of Maryland athletic program, gave a presentation to female student athletes on practical ways to improve nutrition.

The lesson was framed around a high school student's busy lifestyle and limited food options, which she said are major hindrances to eating healthy.

"Telling them to do something isn't going to get them to do it," Jakubczak said. "They have to experience that it really makes a difference."

Gaby Ferra, a senior softball and field hockey player at Blake, said Jakubczak's presentation was different from what she gets in health class.

"They don't really tell you about what type of food in each portion of the food pyramid," she said. "So you don't know what you should be eating and what you can eat."