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SEO Ed Digest
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Vol. 4, Issue 5
May 2007
Bringing urban P-16 education resources to policymakers, parents, advocates, and district and school staff in the District of Columbia
Research on DC Schools
National Lessons Learned
New Ideas
The State Education Office does not endorse the views expressed in the resources and reports contained in the SEO Ed Digest.
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Research has shown that students who come to school hungry do not perform as well in school. School food programs are, therefore, vital in helping children to learn and grow. This issue of the SEO Ed Digest covers recent and background research on the importance of healthy eating and school food programs. The reports section of this Digest is divided into two sections: the first section lists reports focused on the District of Columbia; the second section lists more reports focused on national initiatives. This topic is especially relevant to the District of Columbia because about 40,000 students are eligible for free and reduced priced breakfast and lunches. Further, with childhood obesity at an all-time high, the value of improving nutrition and physical activity is clear. Various reports offer recommendations on how to improve school nutrition.
Articles
Reports on the District of Columbia
National Reports
Articles
American Public Health Association: DC School Nutrition Program Works to Stem the Obesity Trend (Fall 2005)
http://www.apha.org/membergroups/newsletters/sectionnewsletters/school/fall05/1962.htm
Atlantic Journal-Constitutional: Healthy Snack Call: It’s Elementary (April 25, 2007)
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/04/30/0501edsnacks.html
Education Week: Nutrition Group Lobbies for More Free School Meals (March 14, 2007)
http://lnk.edweek.org/edweek/index.html?url=/ew/articles/2007/03/14/27lunch.h26.html&tkn=OZc5tIk6KyHGP%2BszW0GKL9%2Bar6psGiSU
The Examiner: Nutrition Standards Urged for School Food (April 25, 2007)
http://www.examiner.com/a-693816~Nutrition_Standards_Urged_for_School_Food.html
Food Management Magazine: Big Changes in the Big Apple (November 2006)
http://www.food-management.com/article/15469
Washington Post: Give Kids a Chance to Eat Wisely (April 24, 2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042001770.html?referrer=emailarticle
Yahoo News: Obesity Down in Sugar Free Schools: Swedish Study (April 23, 2007)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070423/hl_afp/lifestyleswedenhealth_070423135110;_ylt=AilSllLHAyLwsQXYTCnEhT6JOrgF
 
Reports on the District of Columbia
Action for Healthy Kids: District of Columbia State Profile (2005)
http://actionforhealthykids.org/filelib/stateaction/profiles/District%20of%20Columbia.pdf
The 2005 District of Columbia State Profile contains critical baseline information regarding the state's status in key nutrition and physical activity areas. Profiles were researched and compiled by the Council of Chief State School Officers (an Action for Healthy Kids Partner Steering Committee member) to aid AFHK State Teams in developing and implementing state-level action plans.
Ending Childhood Hunger in the Nation’s Capital: A Plan to Ensure that Every District of Columbia Child has Daily Access to Nutritious Food by 2016
http://www.askmehowdc.org/assets/EndingChildhoodHungerFinal.pdf
The Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in the Nation’s Capital — a collaborative effort between DC Hunger Solutions, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) and Share Our Strength— has developed and will implement a plan to end childhood hunger in the District within 10 years. The plan identifies three deficits that most childhood hunger is caused by: a lack of income, due to a combination of low wages and rising costs; a lack of access to federal nutrition programs — resulting from barriers such as overly cumbersome applications — and to quality food because there are no supermarkets or grocery stores nearby; and a lack of information about programs for which children are eligible, and about how best to provide for children’s needs. What is needed to end childhood hunger is a community-wide mobilization to: bring the existing framework of federal food and nutrition programs to scale so they benefit every child in need and at risk; increase access to healthy food; provide better information for parents and children; and improve economic supports so families can afford good food. The Partnership’s plan provides a blueprint for accomplishing these essential tasks and offers ten goals in ten years. These are to: 1. provide all DC children a healthy breakfast; 2. encourage healthy food choices; 3. help families meet needs at home with food stamps; 4. improve working families’ economic security; 5. increase families’ access to fresh, affordable produce in their neighborhoods; 6. help after-school programs provide healthy meals and snacks; 7. expand the reach of summer meals programs; 8. ensure access to balanced, nutritious diets for all pregnant women and preschool children; 9. ensure access to nutritious food in shelters and food pantries; and 10. provide comprehensive public education about available assistance.
Get the Facts: 2005 Guide to Federal Nutrition Programs in the District of Columbia (December 2005)
http://www.dchunger.org/pdf/get_facts05.pdf
One out of ten District households, due to low income and inadequate food assistance, is hungry or living on the very edge of hunger. Programs like food stamps, WIC, school breakfast and lunch, afterschool and summer food provide nutritious, well-balanced meals to hungry children and adults while generating over one hundred million dollars in federal assistance to families, schools, child care centers and community-based organizations in the District of Columbia. If these programs were maximized to feed all who are eligible, an additional 40 million dollars would flow in to the District’s economy. Federal nutrition programs provide regular, nutritious meals to low-income children, improve students’ behavior, attendance and test scores, as well as reduce visits to school nurse. Research also shows that adolescents that participate in school meal programs are less at risk of obesity and limit consumption of sodas and other less nutritious foods. This guide provides an overview of the Federal Nutrition Programs in the District of Columbia. Programs include: Free and Reduced Price Eligibility, After School Snack Program, School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), CACFP in Homeless and Domestic Violence Shelters, Food Stamp Program, School Lunch Program, Summer Food Service Program, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program, and Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program (FMNP).
Healthy Food, Healthy Communities: An Assessment and Scorecard of Community Food Security in the District of Columbia (July 2006)
http://www.dchunger.org/pdf/healthfoodcomm.pdf
In the District of Columbia more than 68,000 residents, including 35,000 children, are living
on the edge of hunger. This problem is exacerbated by the paradoxical obesity rates of more than 24 percent and higher than average rates of diabetes, hypertension and other nutrition-related illness plaguing our community. This report examines community food security in the District of Columbia. Community food security (CSC) is a relatively new food security-promoting strategy that considers all the factors within a region or community’s food system that influence the availability, cost, and quality of food to area households, particularly those in lower income communities. The food security of individuals, families and communities impacts every aspect of society—from the health and well being of citizens to the financial stability and tax base of City government. By acknowledging and examining the interconnectivity of every aspect of a food system, it is much easier to weave a web of resources that allows every individual to enjoy access to safe, healthy and affordable food. This assessment reviews the current state of access to food and nutrition resources in the District of Columbia by Ward; and provides direction for organizations, government and individuals interested in ensuring food security to individuals by providing better access to healthy and affordable food in every community. The major findings of the assessment are: 1. Grocery stores are not evenly distributed throughout the city. 2. Many healthy items were not available at every grocery store; and when they were, they cost more. 3. Many corner markets, which low-income communities rely on when there is no grocery store, have limited affordable, healthy items in stock. 4. Farmer’s markets are unequally distributed throughout the city and require too much annual red tape to start-up and keep them going; and 5. The District of Columbia overall, is underserved by alternatives such as, grocery cooperatives, community supported agriculture, and particularly community gardens – with 80 percent of gardens being concentrated in Upper Northwest and Capitol Hill neighborhoods.
National Reports
In September and October 2003, 120 volunteers in 24 states (including the District of Columbia) surveyed the contents of 1,420 vending machines in 251 schools, including 105 middle and junior high schools, 121 high schools, and 25 schools with other combinations of these grade levels. The results suggest that the majority of options available to children in school vending machines are high in calories and/or low in nutrition. In both middle and high schools, 75% of beverage options and 85% of snacks were of poor nutritional quality. The most prevalent options are soda, imitation fruit juices, candy, chips, cookies, and snack cakes. The high prevalence of junk food in school vending machines does not support students' ability to make healthy food choices or parents’ ability to feed their children well. This is of concern because 1) 74% of middle/junior high schools and 98% of senior high schools have vending machines, school stores, or snack bars, 2) children are in school for a substantial portion of the week, and 3) obesity rates are rising rapidly in children and teens. Recommendations include: enacting policies that ensure foods sold out of vending machines, school stores, fundraisers, etc. outside of the school meals programs are healthful and make a positive contribution to children’s diets; establishing regulations for all food sales anywhere on school campuses throughout the school day as a condition for participating in the National School Lunch Program or School Breakfast Program; and implementing strong nutrition standards for foods and beverages sold out of vending machines and other venues outside of the school meal programs. The authors recognize that school budgets are tight and that the sale of foods in schools provides much-needed revenue. However, a number of schools around the country have replaced soda in school vending machines with healthier beverages and have not lost money.
Two federal programs—the Summer Food Service Program and the National School Lunch Program—offer children from low-income families and neighborhoods nutritious meals and snacks in the summer. Together they are referred to in this report as the Summer Nutrition programs. Providing good nutritious meals goes hand in hand with ensuring that children have constructive activities to keep them safe, engaged, and learning during the summer months. The Summer Nutrition programs support meals served at local summer education and enrichment programs, recreation centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCA’s, churches, parks, and any other location at which children congregate during the summer. Unfortunately, too few children have access to the Summer Nutrition programs. This report analyzes children’s participation in these key nutrition programs and makes recommendations to improve program access. Major findings include the following: only 18 children participate in Summer Nutrition programs for every 100 who receive free or reduced price school lunches during the school year; overall participation in the Summer Nutrition programs decreased 2.7 percent from July 2004 to July 2005, and now has declined for seven consecutive years; if every state had served in summer 2005 just two-fifths of the children who eat free or reduced price school lunch during the regular school year, an additional 3.5 million children would have been fed through the Summer Nutrition programs; and states participating in the Simplified Summer Food Program, a Congressionally created pilot program that reduces paperwork and maximizes reimbursement, increased Summer Nutrition participation by at least 41.3 percent, while the rest of the states fell 11.9 percent.
Children in the United States are becoming more overweight and obese, putting them at risk for serious health concerns such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and elevated cholesterol and blood pressure levels. In addition to the risk of obesity-related health concerns, poor food choices could lead to other health concerns, like osteoporosis from inadequate calcium intake.
In response to growing concerns over obesity, national attention has focused on the need to establish school nutrition standards and limit access to competitive foods. As a result, over the past few years, school nutrition policy initiatives have been put into place at federal, state, and local levels. However, responses of school districts to meeting wellness policy requirements have not been consistent. To augment local wellness policies, Congress directed the CDC to undertake a study with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to review and make recommendations about appropriate nutritional stands for the availability, sale, content and consumption of foods at school, with attention to competitive foods. The ensuing report, Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools: Leading the Way toward Healthier Youth, concluded that: 1. federally-reimbursable school nutrition programs should be the main source of nutrition at school; 2. opportunities for competitive foods should be limited; and 3. if competitive foods are available, they should consist of nutritious fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nonfat or low-fat milk and dairy products, as consistent with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Committee on Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity report, Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up?, examines the progress made by obesity prevention initiatives in the United States over the past two years. The report builds on the IOM's 2005 report, Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance, which was a congressionally mandated study that provided a blueprint to guide concerted actions for many stakeholders--including government, industry, media, communities, schools, and families--to collectively respond to the growing obesity epidemic in children and youth. To extend the reach and impact of the Health in the Balance report, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation requested in 2005 that the IOM convene an expert committee to examine the nation’s progress in addressing obesity in children and youth. This report, Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up? presents the committee’s conclusions and recommendations. The report emphasizes a call to action for key stakeholders and sectors to lead and commit to childhood obesity prevention, evaluate all policies and programs, monitor their progress, and widely disseminate promising practices.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity among youth and adults has reached epidemic proportions and health care costs associated with these conditions have risen considerably. This article reports long-term trends in the percentage of American students who are overweight and who engage in three health-related behaviors thought to be associated with overweight. It seeks explanations for the higher rates of overweight and obesity among racial/ethnic minorities and among individuals of low socioeconomic status, while examining effects of gender. Data for this study were derived from the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future annual surveys of nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th and 12th grade students. The study looked at whether students ate breakfast and got vigorous exercise, as well as the number of hours they watched television in an average weekday. Overall, the data showed an upward trend in the proportion of American youth who are overweight and a declining trend in healthy behaviors related to diet and exercise, particularly among males. A key finding of this study was that youth from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds, of lower socioeconomic status, and in higher grades were more likely to be overweight and to engage in less healthy behaviors. The study underscores the need for ongoing monitoring of the overweight problem as well as development of research and policy agendas that will contribute both to our understanding and to the reduction of these important health disparities.
This report provides basic data as one tool for helping governments at all levels and schools, advocates, food banks, religious congregations, other service providers and non-profits measure how they are doing in the effort to get key public nutrition programs to more people in need and to provide more adequate benefits. These data describe the extent of hunger and food insecurity and the use of nutrition programs for the United States as a whole and for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, giving a snapshot of how well or badly each state is doing in using available tools to meet the needs of hungry people and improve the health of low- income families.
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