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Dana Demas is a freelance writer in Chicago, specializing
in women’s health and sexuality topics. She’s the
author of Women’s Health and Wellness: An Illustrated
Guide and she’s currently co-writing three books with
leading lifestyle experts. Dana hopes to continue including
her passion for an organic, conscious lifestyle in more of her
writing projects.
 It’s
a question that haunts any parent out there: How do you get
a child to eat her broccoli?
Answer: Put that child in a classroom.
Yes, there can be an alternative way to double-chocolate-brownie
birthday parties and candy-crazed holiday celebrations. And
the way is lined with fragrant herbal gardens and lush tomatoes…
Seven Generations Ahead, a nonprofit based in Oak Park, Illinois,
has been quietly leading the healthy-eating revolution, one
child at a time, with its Fresh from the Farm program
at area Chicago schools.
The innovative program provides children with healthy food
and reconnects them the source of that food through a variety
of hands-on approaches. It makes learning about and eating
your vegetables fun.
Gary Cuneen, Founder and Executive Director of Seven Generations
Ahead, says: “Fresh from the Farm is a very exciting,
holistic program that truly grows a healthy eating ethic among
kids, while giving them an experiential connection to how
food is grown, and the farms and farmers that grow healthy
food in ways that honor the natural environment.”
This Halloween, Nancy Morgridge, R.D. and Fresh from the
Farm Nutrition Consultant, will teach kids to create a
vegetable skeleton in place of the candy-craze and eat the
extra “parts” as leftovers.
There’s a cauliflower brain, a celery spine and limbs,
yellow peppers for hips, a red pepper heart and carrots for
fingers and toes. It’s part of the Healthy Party Modeling
unit of the program.
“We’re giving teachers a hand in helping kids eat
better in a way that doesn’t seem unattainable,”
says Morgridge.
Healthy Kids Are Healthy Adults
Read any newspaper and you’ve heard the news: Obesity
rates are soaring, especially among the young. According to
the Centers for Disease Control, the number of overweight
children aged 6-11 more than doubled in the past 20 years,
jumping from 7 percent in 1980 to 18.8 percent in 2004. The
rate among adolescents aged 12-19 more than tripled, going
from 5 to 17.1 percent.1
Obesity is linked to a well-known cluster of diseases: heart
disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, stroke and sleep and respiratory
problems. Obese kids are twice as likely to become obese adults.
2
While waistlines expand, however, farms suffer. It seems
counterintuitive, but the pressure for more food at cheaper
prices has led to farming and market practices that threaten
the well-being of farmers-and our food system, ecosystem and
quality of life.
Farm-to-school programs come to the rescue at every level:
They provide fresh food to schools and create new markets
for farmers, while offering educational opportunities for
children to learn about food in a way that has nothing to
do with Ronald McDonald.
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Fresh from the Farm
Nancy Morgridge, R.D., splits her time between her
private practice, Nutrition Solutions, Ltd., and traveling
around to Chicago-area schools implementing the Fresh
from the Farm Program. “Teaching kids to eat
well really requires a team effort of healthy food and
education, together,” she says.
Fresh from the Farm takes a multi-disciplinary
approach in its 8-week program, taking place at five
Chicagoland schools this year:
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Healthy Eating Curriculum. Each week,
kids “travel around the world” via an
age-appropriate lesson about what they’re
eating. First-graders might handle a whole avocado
and watch as it’s cut open, then eat a delicious
guacamole tasting (made fresh by Oak Park’s
Buzz Café, with ingredients donated by
Goodness Greenness). Fifth graders might get a
whole kiwi each, learning about how many miles
it travels from New Zealand to reach Chicago—from
the farmer to the airplane to the store—then
eat fruit salad. Says Morgridge, “What’s
most important is that kids see the whole raw
food—taste, smell and touch it—and see
what goes into preparing the dishes, for the full
experience.”
All the while, kids are exploring and tasting
in a “No Yuck Zone”—instilling
respect for the person who grew the food, the
person who made the food, as well as the students
who are enjoying the food around them.
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Farm Visits. Children
visit a farm for a day, learning about the soil
and planting cycle. This year it’s the Green
Earth Institute in Naperville, which has a 60-acre
farm for the kids to explore. Says Morgridge, “I
think the hands-on experience at the farm really
closes the loop for the kids.” |
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Meet the Farmer.
After the harvest in November, farmers visit the
classroom, where kids get to learn about the daily
life of a farmer! |
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Green Star
According to the National Farm to School Program, based out
of Occidental College in Los Angeles, there are about 11,000
schools participating in farm-to-school programs in 32 states.
California boasts the vast majority—9.100 schools—due
in large part to its year-round growing season, which offers
a variety of fresh, local produce that is convenient and affordable.
However, gray skies and winter days haven’t dashed Illinois’
dreams of delivering fresh, local food to its schoolchildren.
Fresh from the Farm is one of three programs in Illinois,
serving 23 schools in all. The others are the Farm to Table
Lunch Program at the Prairie Crossing Charter School in
Grayslake and the Organic School Project serving the
Chicago Public School system.
Seven Generations Ahead has also worked tirelessly with administrators
and parents to overhaul the Oak Park school lunch program.
This puts Illinois at the top of the heap nationally, but
we still have a long way to go.
Eating Good In the Neighborhood
The Organic Center, a nonprofit in Foster, Rhode Island,
dedicated to research and public education about organic products,
has created an outreach campaign called “Mission Organic
2010” that aims to increase organic food consumption
to 10 percent of the U.S. food supply by the year 2010. (It’s
currently 2 percent.)
According to their research, organic fruits and vegetables
pack a 30 percent greater punch of antioxidants. And growing
produce in organically treated soil allows more carbon to
be absorbed from the environment.
This kind of knowledge is powerful and kids are hungry for
it. Learning about food and the natural world around us (another
experience in short supply) plants the seed for lifelong healthy
eating habits.
However, administrators and researchers agree that healthy
eating habits begin—and are sustained—at home.
“You don’t see parents putting Cheetos in their
car, do you?” says Morgridge. “We spend more money
on our cars than we do on our bodies, in many cases, and we
have to think about the choices we are making.”
“You are what you eat. It catches up with us in the
end.”
Plan for Action
Ready to make broccoli your child’s new best friend?
Here are some ideas for getting started on a healthier, happier
school lunch program:
- Reduce unhealthy food and drink choices in your school,
such as soda, potato chips and other typical vending-machine
fare. Consider items such as nuts, dried fruit and whole-grain
crackers and cookies, now widely available.
- Check out your district’s Local School Wellness Policy.
The federally mandated program was voted into all schools
in 2006 and requires that schools create a wellness plan
to curb obesity and offer more nutritious choices to children.
- Offer a salad bar to children at lunch. A daily serving
of fruits and vegetables adds up. Even schools without full-service
kitchens can do it.
- Plant a school garden. If you’re a room mother or
a member of the PTA, suggest a fieldtrip right in your own
backyard. Plant an herb or vegetable garden that children
take turns tending to and, when the time is right, harvesting
and enjoying.
Footnotes:
1. Centers for Disease Control: Prevalence of Overweight
Among Children and Adolescents: United States, 2003-2004.
2. Serdula MK, Ivery D, Coates RJ, Freedman DS, Williamson
DF, Byers T. Do obese children become obese adults? A review
of the literature. Prev Med. 1993 Mar; 22(2): 167-77.
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