Fat Kids, Slim Pickings in Providence Schools

On the front lunch lines in the war against childhood obesity

BY VIRGINIA HUGHES

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Illustration by Alyssa Xu
Lunch Tray

THE HEAD FOOD SERVER at Carl G. Lauro Elementary School is reminded of America's childhood obesity epidemic every weekday morning. Eleanor Lucreziano, who has been doling out breakfast and lunch to the students at the largest elementary school in Providence for over 36 years, reminisces about serving breakfast everyday to one severely obese kindergarten boy.

Earlier in the school year, Lucreziano began to notice the boy's remarkably unhealthy eating habits. She said the first helping of his typical breakfast included a sugary cereal, a juice, a milk, and an apple-filled churro pastry. Concerned, she sought advice from one of the school counselors. As it turned out, the counselor had already been contacted by the boy's mother.

Fortunately, changes ensued in the following months. The boy's older brother now accompanies him in the breakfast line to help him pick out his food. And at the written request of his mother, the school no longer allows him second helpings.

Like adult obesity, childhood obesity in America has been steadily increasing in recent decades.

According to a study done by the CDC in 1980, 7 percent of children aged 6-11 and 5 percent aged 12-19 were overweight. By 2000, this figure had jumped to 9 million, to 15 percent of children aged 6-19. The health problems associated with obesity in adults-including an increased risk of hypertension, Type II diabetes, coronary artery disease, and stroke-have been known for years. But, according to nutritionist and Brown Research Professor Kim Gans, "the way to get issues on the table is to show they are affecting kids."

The great majority of Lauro students buy food from the cafeteria every single day. "There are no more than a couple of dozen baggers," Lucreziano said, "you can count them on your fingers." But with so many Providence kids eating school food, and being offered breakfast selections like apple-filled churro pastries, is it any wonder they're getting increasingly fat?

A Sticky Setback

The American media seems suddenly obsessed with fatness. Reality TV shows like The Biggest Loser, Celebrity Fit Club, and Fat Actress, for example, as well as the constant battery of advertisements for diet pills and fitness machines, all contribute to the expanding popular discourse on obesity. This year's hit documentary Super Size Me has received much of the hype, however, probably because they were bold enough to explicitly name the fast food industry and the federal school lunch programs as culprits for the rise in childhood obesity.

One of Super Size Me's most entertaining parts is a trippy visual tribute to Ronald McDonald. While clips roll of an upbeat and trim Ronald, dancing and winking in his bright yellow suit and big red afro, Curtis Mayfield sings in the background, "You know me, I'm your friend / Your main boy, Thick and thin / I'm your Pusherman." Yet, hidden behind this light and often sarcastic tone are some very weighty claims. On his website, for instance, Super Size Me creator Morgan Spurlock states that "schools are teaching kids to be obese."

To claim that American schools are teaching kids to be obese seems like a bit of a stretch. Although school lunches are a far cry from healthy, surely they don't deserve all of the blame. What about the 17 hours of the day children spend outside of school grounds? They probably spend a disheartening chunk of that watching television and commercials plugging unhealthy food. But who allows them to watch all of that TV? And can we really just point the finger at ads and corporate greed? Like television habits, nutritional habits begin at birth, and are mainly fostered not by marketers or teachers, but parents. Nevertheless, researchers like Brown Professor Patricia Risica insist that schools must strive to improve nutritional education in the classroom, and that it should be integrated into many parts of the curriculum. "Starting in kindergarten," she suggested, "the kids could be counting bananas instead of pieces of candy."

Yet no matter how well students are educated about food choices when sitting in the classroom, one of the biggest contributors to the childhood obesity epidemic ominously awaits them in the cafeteria: the soda machine. Recent research, like one study reported in the April 2004 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has shown that the increased consumption of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in soft drinks may be a contributing factor to the epidemic of weight gain. Between 1970 (when HFCS was first introduced into the marketplace) and 1990, its US consumption increased more than 1,000 percent. And it just so happens that the rise in obesity over that 20-year period exactly mimics the rise in HFCS consumption.

Money, of course, seems to be the primary concern of the school boards and superintendents when contracting out soda machines. In most Rhode Island school districts, vending brings in a significant amount of extra cash. Every high school in Cranston pockets around $45,000 a year from the machines, and uses this money to provide field trips, academic enrichment programs, and even basic office supplies. One principal testified to using the money to "buy coats for the kids." The irony of schools making a profit from the soda machines, however, is that the money often goes toward the funding of sports teams and athletic programs. Consequently, coaches and gym teachers are some of the soda machines' loudest advocates.

Indeed, soda vending proves to be a very sticky situation. In light of these budgetary concerns, nutritionists like Professor Gans feel that although soda should be removed from schools, it is not necessary to remove all vending. She claims that hungry kids would still buy from the machines, even if they only sold healthier products like water, 100-percent-fruit juice, or milk. She also suggests selling the new smaller cans of the soda rather than the typical 20-ounce bottles.

Super-Sized Bureaucracy

Dorothy Brayley, as the Executive Director of the non-profit group Kids First, is working to make changes in the lunchrooms of Providence and the rest of the state. Incorporated in May 1998 with help of grants from the Rhode Island Department of Education and the USDA, Kids First is a Providence organization that, principally, informs school administrators of the obesity problem. They aim to "put pressure on the district to make different budgetary decisions so they don't have to rely on that money," Brayley said. "Our children's health is at stake because of what adults are trying to squeeze out of the food service programs."

Brayley said that some strides toward healthier schools have been made in recent months, thanks to the changes made by the USDA in its 2004 reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. All public school districts receiving federal money for the National School Lunch Program are now required to revamp their nutritional policies. The new guidelines dictate they create "wellness policies" for nutrition and fitness by 2006, as well as meet stricter food safety standards.

The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted program operating in more than 99,000 public and nonprofit private schools. Unlike the more affluent suburbs of Barrington or East Greenwich, most of the students enrolled in Providence rely heavily on this subsidization. In Lauro Elementary, for instance, 756 of the 850 students enrolled are subsidized by the government.

Although it seems like a step in the right direction, Brayley worries about the effectiveness of the new legislation. As of yet, the federal government has not decided how to provide oversight, or even if there will be penalties imposed on districts who do not comply with the new guidelines. So far in Providence, changes are slow. "Providence will definitely be a lagger because of the bureaucracy and the mindsets of the school administrators," she predicted. "I anticipate changes are going to take another five years before they actually have an impact on our children."

Every Day Is Chicken Nugget Day

Sodexho, boasting 400 school-district customers nationwide, is responsible for food distribution in all Providence schools. According to their website, the company provides nutritious meals in order to "establish good eating habits for a lifetime." Food service worker Eleanor Lucreziano was happy to list some of these "healthy" entrees for me: frozen pizza, chicken patties, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and hamburgers. There is no deli counter or salad bar to offer more healthful alternatives.

The five-year Sodexho contract, which is reviewed annually, was just renewed last September. Unfortunately, Brayley said the majority of the review stipulations are budgetary, rather than nutritional. In negotiating the contract with Sodexho, the Providence school district set a maximum per-plate cost of 65 cents, in order to achieve a monetary surplus. She said the 65 cents covers everything in the meal, including milk and bread. "The food service program should not be a money maker, but they want the surplus," she said. "In my opinion, it's wrong."

Although the Sodexho website claims to offer fresh fruits and vegetables as part of their standard menus, these items are not offered in Providence. Besides being more expensive to buy, the washing and serving of fruits and vegetables is more labor-intensive. And though Sodexho offers seemingly healthy canned fruits, they are loaded with-guess what?-HFCS.

Back in the cafeteria at Lauro elementary school, Eleanor Lucreziano has noticed that parents are more interested in the food program, and might be getting better nutritional education. Of the obese kindergarten boy, she said his mother must have talked to him about his weight problem, because when asking for more food he, "doesn't give us those sad pleading eyes anymore."

Lucreziano has observed other changes at Lauro as well. Most notably, she said healthier cereals like Crispix and Cheerios are replacing the sugary ones, and yogurt is now offered on some days.

Yogurt, though a great source of calcium, protein, and B-12, is but a drop in the bucket of Providence's fat kid problem. With money at the bottom line, it's hard to foresee super-sized change in the near future. It is as if we are stuck in Spurlock's trippy vision where Ronald McDonald prances about handing out burgers and fries. He is still our pusherman.

Virginia Hughes B'05 is addicted to Diet A&W Root Beer

For more information about Kids First, visit their website at www.kidsfirstri.org.

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