Seattle Press on Line - Small Steps Toward Healthy Schools

Teacher Ted

Small Steps Toward Healthy Schools

By Ted Lockery

May 09, 2002 -- On Mondays, my ninth grade health students start off each class with a ritual assignment. They open up their logbooks and set a new weekly health goal for themselves and come up with specific strategies for achieving them.

I'll admit that when the idea was first proposed at a health curriculum meeting, I thought the kids would think it was dorky. I know I did. But the results have been amazing!

Students are taking their health goals to heart, making sincere efforts to improve their health. I have students who are doing their homework right after school in order to get eight hours of sleep each night. I have students who are walking or running every day, and students who are cutting back on pop and junk food, eating fruits and vegetables as alternatives to nachos and brownies. I even have students who have quit watching television!

When we debrief on the previous week's health goal attempts we talk about the challenges and pitfalls in making lasting, healthy changes in our habits. Change is hard. We don't always succeed the first time we try. But as my students have come to understand, change in small steps--setting specific, achievable goals--is the path to success.

A health goal that I propose for all Seattle public schools, including Nathan Hale, where I teach, is that we wean ourselves from the practice of selling candy, pop, and fatty snacks to students as a way of raising revenue for student programs. I'm talking about the vending machines, the lunchroom snack bars and a la carte counters, and even the PTSA's morning snack stands.

Speaking as someone whose school bicycle club received a generous, grassroots grant from the Nathan Hale PTSA, it may seem like I am biting the very hand feeds me and my students. And I don't mean any disrespect to the wonderful parents, staff, and students involved in the thankless task of counting quarters to enrich students' lives with athletics, music and drama programs, student government, and school yearbooks. These programs are essential, and it is essential that funds are raised to provide them (since the state won't!). But how? How can we drum up the quick cash without filling our students with sugar, fat, salt, and caffeine throughout the day?

Quitting cold turkey would risk pulling the plug on student programs. Limiting the sale of non-nutritious foods until after lunch (current District policy) would likely create a dip in sales. There is even fiscal risk in phasing in fruit, low-sugar juices, low-fat baked goods, and protein rich, low-fat cow and soy milk.

But think about the risks we are taking with our students' lives by not making these changes. Obesity (increasing the risk of heart disease) and Type 2 Diabetes are on the rise among school-aged children in America. A recent King County Public Health Department report indicated that obesity among King County residents has increased from 37 percent of the population in 1987 to 52 percent in 2001. The report attributes this increase to "excessive calorie consumption" and lack of exercise. It also cites a 131 percent increase in soft drink consumption (from 1987/1988 to 1994/1996) as a likely contributing factor.

The surgeon general, last November, issued a "Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity," calling on school districts to "prohibit student access to vending machines, school stores, and other venues that compete with healthy school meals in elementary schools and restrict access in middle, junior, and high schools."

The evidence speaks for itself.

How can we continue to ignore the fact that we are engaged in funding practices that harm our students?

What a school like Nathan Hale needs to ensure a win-win solution to this quandary is a "transition grant." A transition grant, provided by an agency, research institution, or concerned citizens (parents?), would act as an insurance policy for student programs, replacing "lost dollars" as junk foods are phased out, limits are imposed, and nutritious foods are phased in. Such a grant ($25,000 to cover Nathan Hale's vending revenue) would provide school groups the security, and the courage, to explore untried fundraising ideas that might go beyond merely breaking bad habits, perhaps leading to healthy and sustainable funding plans that take fewer dollars from students' pockets.

As my health students can attest, the key to achieving one's goal is to commit to it, to break it down into small, achievable steps; to celebrate the victories along the way, and in the face of failure, to the keep one's eye on the prize. Let them be our example as we make the transition to healthier schools!

Ted Lockery teaches at Nathan Hale High School. He can be reached by e-mail at teacherted@seattlepress.com.

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