A recipe for disaster

If the saying "You are what you eat" is true, today's students are filled with fat, sugar and cholesterol.

Pizza, hamburgers, submarine sandwiches, french fries, chips, sodas, ice cream, cookies, yogurt and bagels account for up to 70 percent of all food sales at high schools, according to a study by the Public Health Institute, a nonprofit health organization based in Berkeley.

Health experts fear that a steady diet of these foods is a recipe for health disasters in adulthood - especially when students are exercising less both at school and at home.

"Today's kids are eating garbage," says Aleta Oryall, a teacher at Aptos Middle School in San Francisco. Her school is typical in that it would like to eliminate junk food, but needs the income it produces.

"This year we are trying to reduce the amount of junk food sold at school," says Oryall, a member of United Educators San Francisco. "We cook our lunches here on campus, which is rare because it's expensive. To offset the extra cost, cafeteria workers sell a lot of stuff like candy, soda pop or cookies. If they didn't, they'd be gone and we'd be getting packaged food instead of freshly prepared foods.

"Our principal has gotten rid of soft drinks in the locker rooms. Only water is sold there now. Eventually we will phase out caffeinated beverages."

Bad eating habits usually start well before students start kindergarten. Youngsters may cut their teeth on Happy Meals and other take-out fast food because it's cheap and their parents are too busy to cook. "Supersized" portions are now considered to be the norm, as both appetites and waistlines have expanded.

But if students are hooked on fast food, schools now find themselves playing the role of "enablers." School cafeterias often resemble shopping mall food courts with their fast-food franchises like Domino's Pizza, Burger King and Taco Bell. Districts have discovered that partnerships with fast-food outlets cost them little or nothing, and may provide extra revenue for extracurricular programs or clubs.

Most of the "à la carte" offerings, which are sold in addition to the National School Lunch Program meals, do not have to meet the nutrition requirements of the traditional school lunch and are not regulated by the state or federal government. Most schools receive government-subsidized lunches only for students whose families can meet specific income requirements. When it comes to selling food to other students, schools are expected to be financially self-sufficient.

One in five schools sells more à la carte items than regular lunches, according to the Public Health Institute study. One in three makes an estimated half of food sales from à la carte items. Healthy à la carte items are considerably less available than unhealthy items.

"The most popular school lunch is a small pepperoni pizza, nachos, a peanut butter cookie and a diet soda," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. "That particular lunch is a dietary bomb, containing 1,116 calories and 51 grams of fat. By comparison, a federally regulated school meal can't be more than 825 calories and 28 grams of fat."

But even with healthy food available, kids will still seek out junk food, say educators.

"We have an open campus, so kids can go out and buy fast food," says Lorene Yoshihara, who heads the PE Department at Santa Maria High School. "We don't have a cafeteria per se where kids can sit down and eat cafeteria-prepared food. But we do have salads, fruits and vegetables for sale - along with french fries, hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza. Kids eat pretty much what they want. It's the same at home."

Like other teachers, Yoshihara is seeing more obese students on campus. "Girls especially seem concerned about their weight," she says. "We offer three aerobics classes a day, and they are always full. Our weight-training classes are full. Students are concerned, but at the same time they don't want to change their eating habits and get their weight under control. People today want an easy fix, like diet pills or liposuction, instead of eating right and exercising."

"Moderation is what's important, but this generation doesn't fully understand this," adds Yoshihara. "I'm not sure taking all the sodas away will solve the problem; students have to learn to eat and drink in moderation."

Oryall in San Francisco would like to see schools and parents work together to promote good nutrition and eating habits.

"Nutrition has to come from the bottom up," she says. "We can't teach students nutrition and then sell them junk food.

"On the other hand, parents can't hand them $2 and expect them to make wise choices, because kids will usually buy a soda and a cookie at school. Parents have to emphasize nutrition and build in some kind of exercise that can be done as a family - walking places or riding bikes. Good eating and exercise habits can't just come from teachers alone."