Programs to educate parents on nutrition

Farm to School programs are growing in popularity.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

LEAVITTSBURG — Many parents of school-age children don’t do their own cooking, don’t model good eating habits to their children and don’t expose their children to healthy types of food.

But if given the proper encouragement, parents and children can be taught how to eat better so that they become healthier and more successful adults, a Youngstown State University nutrition instructor said Tuesday.

Jeanine Mincher told the 61 food service workers and managers attending a seminar at LaBrae High School that one study of schoolchildren in Florida indicated that most kids didn’t know what a sweet potato was. The seminar was sponsored in part by the Trumbull County Health Department.

The New Middletown woman said her own experience backed that up: A 10-year-old guest in her house one time didn’t know what a salad was.

A July 2007 nutritional study by HealthFocus,a marketing research and consulting firm specializing in consumer health and nutrition trends, showed that most parents of school-age children are from Generation X (born between 1965 and 1985).

These parents tend to be familiar with fast food, have a high percentage of overweight kids, believe in fad diets, frequently don’t cook but are motivated to “take charge” of problems in their lives.

What’s needed

Such parents are among the large number of those today who want to provide their children with good nutrition but don’t know how.

That’s where school food service workers, teachers and administrators can make a difference, she said.

“You can be the change agent,” she told them.

One reason kids aren’t eating vegetables is that their parents don’t introduce them to these foods, sometimes because the parents don’t eat them, Mincher said.

“Parents need to set a good example,” Mincher said.

Children even learn eating habits from their mothers before they are born, Mincher added. Studies have shown that babies acquire the taste for foods through breast milk and amniotic fluid in the womb.

Parents can have an impact on the eating habits of children, Mincher said, and food service workers can also play an important role.

A host of organizations and movements have begun throughout the United States and Europe with the goal of teaching kids about healthy food.

One such concept is called Farm to School, which links schools and local farms. Schools buy and feature farm-fresh foods such as fruits and vegetables, eggs, honey, meat and beans, incorporate nutrition-based lessons and take the children on farm visits. Sometimes planting a garden is part of the project.

Such programs “train the palate” so that children acquire a taste for healthy foods, she noted.

Another speaker was Elizabeth Scott, principal at West Point Elementary in the Beaver School District in Columbiana County, who implemented a universal breakfast program last year with positive results.

Of the 200 children in the school — kindergarten to fourth grade — 170 ate breakfast at the start of the school day. The result was improved achievement scores of as much as 30 percentage points in some areas, better attendance and fewer student visits to the nurse.

“The teachers are very satisfied,” with the program and want to keep it, she said.

runyan@vindy.com