NUTRITION;
SUCCESS TRACED TO MENU IN DISTRICT
BYLINE: Dennis Fiely, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, August 4, 2004

BODY: A revamped food-service program has helped nourish a failing school district back to academic health.

"We can't attribute all of our success to nutrition, but nutrition is the bedrock. We started there," Pat Cooper said. "I know it affects behavior and performance."

Cooper, superintendent of the 3,000-student McComb school district in southwestern Mississippi, launched the health program four years ago.

Since then, the system has doubled its graduation rate to 92 percent and reduced its dropout rate from 30 percent to less than 2 percent.

"We also are getting good test scores because we are zeroing in on the basic needs of children," Cooper said. "Our kids are eating better; kids have to be healthy to learn."

He will speak this week at a workshop in Worthington.

At the seven McComb schools, he replaced the colas and candy in vending machines with milk, water and 100 percent juice.

He revamped the food service to emphasize fewer fried offerings and more fresh fruit and vegetables.

The cafeterias stopped serving a la carte, and students were allowed to take juice and water into classrooms.

"We have to make sure our kids are not only eating but eating right," Cooper said. "We don't just look at total calories; we look at fat calories.

"Our goal is to change the eating habits of a generation of kids, from kindergarten through high school."

The food service at most of the nation's schools, he said, is "a money operation and a sin" -- responsible for misbehavior, obesity and underachievement.

Antonia Demas, a nutritionist who will join Cooper in Columbus, demonstrated the link between nutrition and academics with research projects in California, Florida and Indiana.

After 3 1/2 weeks on vegetarian diets, for example, 19 troubled teenagers at the Bay Point School for boys in Miami raised grades by one letter or more and experienced fewer behavioral problems.

"I wake up with a natural high every morning," one wrote in his journal.

"I am a happier person," another said. "On meat I was always mean and lazy."

"They felt better because they unclogged their systems," Demas said. "Before, when they were eating the typical institutional food, they were like cars trying to run on dirty gas and oil."

The program at McComb includes daily physical education and mental-health counseling.

The nutritional component pays for itself: Vending-machine revenue has increased 30 percent, and the participation rate in the cafeterias has improved from 78 percent to 98 percent.

"The district does not have to put one dime into our food service," Cooper said.

It even retained its valued contract with Coca-Cola.

"We just changed it," he said, by substituting Coke products such as Minute Maid juice and Dasani water.


Action For Healthy Kids

Action for Healthy Kids is about creating health-promoting schools that support sound nutrition and physical activity as part of a total learning environment.

Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) is a nationwide initiative dedicated to improving the health and educational performance of children through better nutrition and physical activity in schools. This effort represents a response to our nation's epidemic of overweight, sedentary, and undernourished children and adolescents. Healthy schools produce healthy students -- and healthy students are better able to learn and achieve their true potential. An outgrowth of the 2002 Healthy Schools Summit, AFHK is composed of 51 State Teams and a national coordinating and resource group. AFHK fosters sharing and collaboration among diverse stakeholders to encourage and facilitate meaningful change in schools. Guidance and direction is provided by more than 40 national organizations and government agencies representing education, health, physical activity and nutrition. Learn more about us.

An integrated grassroots network of AFHK State Teams is launching state-level Action Plans focused on improving nutrition and physical activity opportunities in schools. Learn how you can take action, find out what's happening in your state or simply use our tools for action.

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Guidance is provided by a board of directors and more than 40 national organizations and government agencies representing education, health, fitness and nutrition.

AFHK State Teams