Junk Food Paradise
Many people already know that the San Francisco Unified School District has perhaps the most comprehensive Wellness Policy in the nation, and certainly one of the most venerable. While the federal Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 2004 mandated that every school district operating a federal meals program establish a Wellness Policy by the start of the 06-07 school year, the SFUSD’s policy was implemented in 2003, long before the child obesity crisis was on most people’s radar.
Sodas are still routinely sold in high schools around California, and even new state legislation taking effect in July will only limit them to 50% of available offerings in high schools, but sodas have been banned from all SFUSD cafeterias since 2003, and from school vending machines since January 2004. With a nutrition standard which allows less fat in snacks and entrees than new state legislation taking effect in July, SFUSD has long been out in front in assuring that food sold and served in school cafeterias is healthy for students and does not contribute to the skyrocketing rates of child obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease now afflicting the nation’s youth.
All SFUSD schools are supposed to comply with the Wellness Policy, which has been heavily promoted over the past 3 years. No food or beverages should be sold at any school during the school day, except in the cafeteria or vending machines. That means no bake sales, no classroom pizza sales, no student store snack sales, no club fundraising candy sales, at all during the school day, not even "for a good cause" or "just this once." There are also limits on what can be sold after school, when, and by whom. All of this has been publicized to Principals again and again.
If only they were listening. The best kept secret about the award winning SFUSD Wellness Policy is that few people besides the Director of Student Nutrition Services have bothered to follow it. The cafeterias have offered nothing but food that meets the Wellness Policy standards since August 2003, but many schools have remained a junk food lover’s paradise. There are bake sales at lunchtime at elementary schools, and vending machines stocked with chips and cookies at middle schools. At least one high school runs a junk food student store every day in competition with the cafeteria, and invites a catering truck to come sell at lunchtime right on the doorstep of the closed campus. Meanwhile, the school’s vending machines sell a variety of banned items, and students fundraise nonstop selling each other everything from caramel apples and chocolates to beef sticks and lollypops.
All of that is about to change. Associate Superintendent Jeannie Pon has recognized that it is not in the best interests of our students for competitive sales to continue to drain money away from the school cafeterias. When this happens, there is less money to spend improving cafeteria food for the students, and those most affected are the poorest students, who can’t afford to buy the competitive foods, and who have no choice but to eat the school lunch or go hungry. Worse, some students are so acutely aware of the stigma attached to eating in the cafeteria (especially on a campus where junk food sales are rampant), that they will skip lunch altogether rather than risk being seen accepting a “free lunch.” It is well known that this stigma seems to be felt more strongly by African American and Latino students than by their Asian peers.
Associate Superintendent Pon has committed to enforcing the district’s Wellness Policy, and not a moment too soon. At one SFUSD high school making no effort whatsoever to follow the district’s Wellness Policy, the crowd of over 300 students eating lunch in the cafeteria one recent day contained just one African American student, even though about 10% of the school’s population is African American. There were plenty of AA students out by the catering truck, though – some buying lunch, but others just hanging out. Clearly, lunch from a truck is “cool”, lunch in a school cafeteria, “not cool.”
Sadly, the very students most affected by the stigma attached to eating school meals in a junk food paradise, are often the same students who are on the wrong side of the academic achievement gap, the ones whose test scores the district is desperately trying to help raise. Creating an environment in which these students feel social pressure to skip lunch and instead hang out on the sidewalk near the catering truck is probably not going to accomplish that goal.
Learn more about school food here.
Sodas are still routinely sold in high schools around California, and even new state legislation taking effect in July will only limit them to 50% of available offerings in high schools, but sodas have been banned from all SFUSD cafeterias since 2003, and from school vending machines since January 2004. With a nutrition standard which allows less fat in snacks and entrees than new state legislation taking effect in July, SFUSD has long been out in front in assuring that food sold and served in school cafeterias is healthy for students and does not contribute to the skyrocketing rates of child obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease now afflicting the nation’s youth.
All SFUSD schools are supposed to comply with the Wellness Policy, which has been heavily promoted over the past 3 years. No food or beverages should be sold at any school during the school day, except in the cafeteria or vending machines. That means no bake sales, no classroom pizza sales, no student store snack sales, no club fundraising candy sales, at all during the school day, not even "for a good cause" or "just this once." There are also limits on what can be sold after school, when, and by whom. All of this has been publicized to Principals again and again.
If only they were listening. The best kept secret about the award winning SFUSD Wellness Policy is that few people besides the Director of Student Nutrition Services have bothered to follow it. The cafeterias have offered nothing but food that meets the Wellness Policy standards since August 2003, but many schools have remained a junk food lover’s paradise. There are bake sales at lunchtime at elementary schools, and vending machines stocked with chips and cookies at middle schools. At least one high school runs a junk food student store every day in competition with the cafeteria, and invites a catering truck to come sell at lunchtime right on the doorstep of the closed campus. Meanwhile, the school’s vending machines sell a variety of banned items, and students fundraise nonstop selling each other everything from caramel apples and chocolates to beef sticks and lollypops.
All of that is about to change. Associate Superintendent Jeannie Pon has recognized that it is not in the best interests of our students for competitive sales to continue to drain money away from the school cafeterias. When this happens, there is less money to spend improving cafeteria food for the students, and those most affected are the poorest students, who can’t afford to buy the competitive foods, and who have no choice but to eat the school lunch or go hungry. Worse, some students are so acutely aware of the stigma attached to eating in the cafeteria (especially on a campus where junk food sales are rampant), that they will skip lunch altogether rather than risk being seen accepting a “free lunch.” It is well known that this stigma seems to be felt more strongly by African American and Latino students than by their Asian peers.
Associate Superintendent Pon has committed to enforcing the district’s Wellness Policy, and not a moment too soon. At one SFUSD high school making no effort whatsoever to follow the district’s Wellness Policy, the crowd of over 300 students eating lunch in the cafeteria one recent day contained just one African American student, even though about 10% of the school’s population is African American. There were plenty of AA students out by the catering truck, though – some buying lunch, but others just hanging out. Clearly, lunch from a truck is “cool”, lunch in a school cafeteria, “not cool.”
Sadly, the very students most affected by the stigma attached to eating school meals in a junk food paradise, are often the same students who are on the wrong side of the academic achievement gap, the ones whose test scores the district is desperately trying to help raise. Creating an environment in which these students feel social pressure to skip lunch and instead hang out on the sidewalk near the catering truck is probably not going to accomplish that goal.
Learn more about school food here.
Labels: Nutrition
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