Missy Chase Lapine
Hot dogs, French fries and chocolate milk – foods that school kids have gobbled up for decades – have come under intense scrutiny in recent years.
With childhood obesity, diabetes and other health problems on the rise, the fillers and the fats, the sugars and the salt of these lunchtime favorites are under the microscope.
First lady Michelle Obama has perhaps most visibly led the way, planting a garden in the White House to demonstrate the benefits of fresh produce, while also promoting “Let’s Move,” an initiative to motivate children to exercise and eat better.
But others are taking up the cause, as well.
Celebrity chef, author and food activist Jamie Oliver transformed his British “Feed Me Better” campaign into America’s “Food Revolution,” with an accompanying ABC show. Oliver’s spotlight has also been credited with helping get the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 passed by Congress.
Last month, even a number of restaurant chains, including Burger King and IHOP, announced they will offer children’s menus with more nutritious fare.
As students wind down their summers and head back to the classrooms, many will find menus continuing to evolve.
Locally, there are plenty of encouraging signs, said Peter Richel, a Mount Kisco-based pediatrician and chief of the department of pediatrics at Northern Westchester Hospital.
“It does vary, district to district,” he said. But overall, “in some ways, I think that we are ahead of the curve.”
He pointed to school districts that have implemented on-site gardens, offer healthier choices (“less processed and more fresh”) and in some cases, have turned the whole menu “upside down.”
“The healthier food choices in the cafeteria is absolutely the way to go,” Richel said. “We are taking steps in the right direction.”
And it’s needed.
“As pediatric clinicians, we certainly see signs of the obesity epidemic in infancy,” he said, pointing out that parents can turn to resources such as Healthy Kids NOW in Northern Westchester for guidance.
The nationwide problem, he said, is due to both familial factors such as metabolism, as well as “our practices in the home.”
Jamie Oliver
Richel said parents need to develop healthy habits for their children, “not allowing them, out of love and good intentions, to graze all day” and not using food to quiet a child.
The good habits need to carry over even more to the schools, though it seems a number in the area have already taken the plunge.
The Greenwich public schools, for example, have long had a health and nutrition committee in place, said Kim Eves, the district’s director of communications. Another example is the wellness committee in the Chappaqua Central School District.
Lisa Randolph, the school-lunch manager for the past 13 years at the Scarsdale public schools, said her district is in an advantageous position since it doesn’t participate in the federally assisted National School Lunch program, which offers free and reduced-price meals.
“We don’t have guidelines as strict,” Randolph said. “We’re pretty much free to do as we please and that’s a good thing. And money is not an issue. We can offer fresh vegetables every day.”
They even bring in vegetarian sushi from a restaurant.
“We stay within our community and try to get healthy and nutritious things from within.”
And things always change, with Randolph holding taste tests before introducing new options.
“The lunch program evolves every year,” Randolph said. “We try to teach (students) to make good nutritional choices.”
That, she said, is supplemented by what’s taught in the classrooms.
“The high school, they have a little more free rein,” she said, noting it’s an “open campus” where older students can leave for lunch. A short walk, she said, brings them many options so “we try to offer them things to stay in.”
Of course, she said salad bars, pastas and paninis will always be in the company of French fries – but here they are always fresh-cut and might be made with sweet potatoes.
As kids get older, their tastes also change, Randolph said.
“Most kids are health-conscious. They watch the calories. I think we have to get them to eat. They want to be thin.”
But they also want to feel good, to have energy for activities in and out of school.
Missy Chase Lapine of Irvington, an author known as “The Sneaky Chef,” has two daughters in the Irvington public schools.
“I’m a mom, and I’m trying to feed my own kids healthy foods,” she said.
Lapine – who has worked with several area school districts (and has her recipes served at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital) – said parents need to be able to team up with schools that, she said, are “not successful enough.”
“I’ve seen them take away (but) not put back good options,” she said. “You just can’t take out the bad.”
There’s no point, she said, replacing favorites with a “moldy old salad bar” that doesn’t appeal.
“Kids should not go hungry at school. The solution is to take the favorite lunch meals and make them healthier.”
Lapine, whose fifth book, “The Speedy Sneaky Chef” (Running Press) will be released in January, said to look at a child-pleaser such as baked ziti.
In Lapine’s world, the dish would be made with whole-grain pasta, reduced-fat cheeses and a marinara sauce infused with cauliflower, sweet potato, carrots and zucchini.
“By doing that, the calories and the fat go way down,” she said. “It still has to look like their favorite meal and it has to taste really very good.”
She welcomes not only schools but parents to contact her through her website (thesneakychef.com) to ask questions and work on improving menus.
She might even share the recipe for her latest creation — a blueberry hamburger.
It’s dishes like these she’d like to see on school-lunch menus to help kids eat healthier and avoid “foggy thinking.”
That way, she said: “They’ll feel better. They’ll think better in school. We’re a superpower. We need to raise super kids.”
