Bringing Schools Better Nutrition

By Dawn Marks, The Oklahoman

Apr. 10–EDMOND — Health and wellness are part of the plan in Edmond schools.

Students all over the district are learning more about fitness and health through programs and better nutrition in cafeterias, administrators said.

“This is a journey that started seven or eight years ago,” said Bret Towne, associate superintendent. “(Nutrition employees) understand the consequences of not having good nutrition.”

Towne and other administrators gave a report for Oklahoma Wellness Week, which is this week, to Edmond School Board members Monday night.

The district’s child nutrition program has made big changes in the last several years to promote wellness, Towne said. Now, each school has breakfast, and french fries are only served two days a week on the secondary level. Elementary students only have french fries twice in each 25-day cycle, he said.

In addition to making changes to menus, the district’s dietitian also keeps track of the carbohydrate content in each meal so that students with diabetes will not have problems after eating, Towne said.

Lynne Rowley, executive director of elementary education, said the goal is to help students learn good habits for eating and physical activity that they will use throughout their lifetime.

Several of the schools have programs to promote health and physical education programs and walking challenges in addition to athletic programs. In the district’s middle and high schools, 4,415 students participate in athletics, she said.

Also, seven elementary schools and two middle schools require students to participate in some type of walking or running program before school or at recess, and eight schools have health fairs.

At Washington Irving Elementary School, health and physical education teachers receive a $1,000 grant and resources from Schools for Healthy Lifestyles to educate students about things such as muscle strength, endurance and flexibility, said Shana Classen, a physical education and health teacher.

Students also learn about food through hands-on activities like making a mosaic out of beans while learning about their nutritional value.

“It’s just a fun way to learn about nutrition,” Classen said.

Next year, the cafeteria will have signs reminding students about nutritional value of foods using the names they’ve learned for them, she said. For example, a “go food” is something students should eat frequently, a “slow food” is something they should eat less often and a “whoa food” is something they should only eat on special occasions, she said.

Several schools have programs that meld education with physical activity. At Central Middle School this year, students were encouraged to read for 26 minutes and run a mile a day for 26 days during the Exercise Right to Read program. At Chisholm Elementary School, students are walking around the world a third of a mile at a time, principal Joann Graham said.

Students walk a lap on the walking trail before recess and keep track of their progress. In past years, students have walked to destinations they studied in their social studies classes. Students should finish in May.

“This time we decided to go global,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

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