Overview
Overweight kids have a 70% chance of becoming overweight adults – increasing their risk for heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and other health issues.
School Districts across Michigan and the United States are responding to new government mandates to tackle the issue of childhood obesity and malnutrition. The initial steps have already been taken. School cafeterias are working hard to improve the availability of healthful foods and restrict poor nutritional choice foods such as sugar filled, fatty snacks and colas. The next step, and the more difficult one to accomplish in many cases, is the need to educate children in a better lifestyle. This is often complicated by the fact that their parents, exhausted from the demands of everyday busy life, sometimes finding it difficult to provide daily healthy meals and time to incorporate regular exercise.
One way to meet the dual goals of feeding kids better while teaching them about healthy foods and the environment that supports them, is a concept called Michigan Farm Day, a non-profit corporation. Michigan Farm Day presents kids and their parents with healthy, flavorful fruit and vegetable choices, as well as prepared foods that are created from the fresh produce, onsite, at school. The program makes purchasing and consuming healthy foods easy for busy parents and gives kids ready access to fresh picked foods with better taste and nutritional value. It also supports local businesses and provides a vehicle for teaching kids about local/natural food and its challenges and rewards.
Michigan Farm Day’s mission is to encourage a stronger connection between children and natural and locally grown foods, along with providing supplemental education that supports this effort. This is accomplished through:
- Michigan Farm Day events, where local, fresh, and natural foods are brought to the school in a Farmer’s Market style event. Food is available to taste and purchase. Much care is taken in the selection of items to provide healthy options.
- Nutritional Facts are brought together and presented in an effort to educate consumers (parents and students) on the value of fresh / natural food.
- Supplemental Educational Experiences are put together based upon the goal required. Examples include age appropriate classes that are designed to provide children with knowledge about the food / farm experience and demonstrations from local subject matter experts.
Creating a Healthier Population
Unhealthy dietary habits and sedentary behavior account for 300,000 deaths and $100 billion in healthcare costs each year.
The affects of poor nutrition for children are obvious. Overweight, low energy children have become a common sight in today’s school yards and hallways. However, what also needs to be taken into account are the long term affects of poor exercise and eating habits as these kids grow into overweight, low energy adults. Years of nutritional neglect and physical inactivity set the stage for many of today’s deadliest and most incapacitating diseases to attack us as we age. As a society it makes sense for us to address these issues early, helping kids feel better and allowing them to grow into healthier adults, possibly reducing the cost of healthcare in this country in the future.
Making it Easy to Improve Habits
Nearly 80% of young people don’t eat recommended amounts of fruits & vegetables.
Once they are exposed to them, fresh foods taste better, look better, and are more appealing to kids. Unfortunately, many of the fruits and vegetables we purchase in the grocery store travel long distances to the grocery shelves and are therefore not as fresh and tasty as they could be. In addition, today’s busy parents tend to make do with processed foods rather than making regular trips to the grocery to purchase relatively short lived fresh produce. Michigan Farm Day allows parents to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as foods that have been made with them, easily at their kids’ school. Alternatively, in addition to eating fresh foods at school, kids can purchase Michigan Farm Day offerings and bring them home, allowing them to take an active part in the family’s efforts to improve health and lifestyle habits. Another Opportunity to Teach Michigan Farm Day is the perfect vehicle for teaching children about the agriculture business and its roots in the founding of this great country. As we move further and further from our agricultural roots, many of us forget the basics that have helped us become a great nation and will continue to keep us vital in the future. The importance of agriculture has not diminished in this country, but its focus has changed. Today’s farmers concentrate on maximizing growth while minimizing environmental destruction, and fresh, organic foods have become popular over foods grown with chemicals to control bugs and rot. Michigan Farm Day gives kids the chance to learn firsthand how the food they eat is planted, cultivated, and harvested and what this process means to them individually as well as to the world they live in as a whole. It’s a learning experience that will truly mean something to the students in the district.
Summary
Michigan Action for Healthy Kids (MAFHK) includes the following as one of its 3 goals: Increase consumption of healthy food choices.
As you work to meet government mandates for improving the health and safety of the children in your school district, it makes sense to find new ways to enhance the effectiveness of your efforts. Michigan Farm Day is a simple concept that would have huge, potential benefits to the children and their families in your district. Local farmers will welcome the opportunity to promote their products and teach future generations about the importance of agriculture to our health and economy as well as discuss the changes that determine its future landscape. Parents will appreciate both your dedication to their children’s health and the convenience of being able to peruse tasty, local goods without making a special trip, reducing the complexity of their day while improving their families’ health. And kids will learn to appreciate the difference in quality of these foods and develop a taste for fresher, healthier offerings.
We believe Michigan Farm Day is a win-win for everyone involved. We hope you’ll give us a chance to implement the program at your school or event. Your support will be applauded in the community.
* Facts and figures mentioned in this document have come from the following website: Michigan Action for Healthy Kids (http://www.actionforhealthykids.org).