AFT food service workers leading the fight for healther kids

Fairly or not, school food service workers have been placed front and center in efforts to address the alarming rise of childhood obesity in the United States. On the one hand, schools do play an important role in serving nutritious food to the millions of children who pass through the lunch (and breakfast) line each day. But it’s almost as if food service staff have to tackle the challenge with one hand behind their backs.

Schools work hard to improve lunch offerings while installing snack and soda vending machines all over the building and allowing parent and student groups to sell less-nutritious snack food, sometimes in direct competition with school lunches. In the name of more rigorous academics, districts are cutting back on recess and physical education—two great ways to get kids more active and healthy. And we all know there’s no way to control the food that children bring from home, even if lunch consists of a soda, a bag of chips and a candy bar.

A new AFT survey of food service workers—which drew responses from members as well as nonmembers—confirms that the struggle to improve what students eat in school probably will not end anytime soon. But it also shows that AFT food service workers are actively addressing the issue of students’ eating habits; these efforts are starting to make a difference and should pay off even more in the long run, especially with greater support from school administrators and lawmakers.

Most school food service programs have to be self-supporting. So if pizza is the most popular item—and the AFT survey shows that it is, by a large margin—what happens when schools try to serve it less often and get students to eat lower-fat entrees and more fruits and vegetables, as we generally agree they should? One likely outcome is that students won’t buy as many lunches, and the food service program will eventually run into financial problems.

The survey responses reveal this tension between providing choices and getting students to make the right ones. On one question, 81 percent of those surveyed said they think their school gives students “a good selection of choices.” But another question asks if students are more likely to choose foods high in sugar and fat or foods that make up a more balanced diet. Sugar and fat win out 57 percent to 39 percent, the survey indicates.

Making healthy choices

To be successful, school menu changes have to be introduced gradually and combined with education efforts. AFT member Hilda Criado, a food service manager in San Antonio, says that in her district, for example, nothing is fried anymore, only baked. Recipes have been improved to make them more nutritious, and some of the biggest offenders—such as hot dogs—have been cut way back or eliminated, she says. Along with the changes, Criado says, students are given lots of choices so they can find something they like. And it seems to be working. Sam Houston High School, where she works, is serving more meals than ever. What’s more, about 80 teachers a day also buy the lunches.

In Philadelphia, food service manager Steven Brinkley recruits students at the middle school where he works for taste tests to check out new offerings. “For so long we just gave them what was easiest,” says Brinkley, a member of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. “It didn’t happen overnight, but gradually they’re moving to healthier choices.” One promising change has been offering a wider variety of fresh fruits and vegetables in addition to things like salad bars. Both Criado and Brinkley say dessert portions also have gotten smaller.

Presentation can be just as important as what’s being served. Mattie Wright, a food service worker in Florida and member of the AFT-affiliated Madison County Education Association, wears different fun clothes—like her fruit hat or her vegetable sweater—to attract students’ attention to good choices. (Wright has learned from experience, however, that grapes are one fruit that doesn’t work because they tend to get thrown more than eaten.)

As far as actual presentation, Wright says, it helps to steal ideas from fast-food joints, which are invariably coming up with new and attractive ways to display their offerings. If it feels less like “cafeteria food,” students might be more likely to put it on their trays.

Snack foods galore

Philadelphia is one of a growing number of school districts—and entire states in some cases—that have tried to improve student nutrition by limiting the availability of vending machines or restricting the sale of junk food such as soda and potato chips. For example, only milk, water and juice are now sold in the district’s vending machines. Another common restriction is to limit the hours during which vending machines are turned on, primarily during lunch periods.

Not surprisingly, Criado says that even though her school requires the machines to be off during lunch, students sometimes go and plug them in anyway.

The junk food issue is especially frustrating to food service members, says Lorretta Johnson, head of the AFT’s PSRP division and an AFT vice president. “More needs to be done to limit snack foods in cafeterias. The three basic food groups should not be sugar, salt and grease,” she says.

Vending machines are not the only source of snack foods. Sixty percent of those surveyed by the AFT say that prepackaged foods, such as chips, cakes and cookies, are sold by their school food service operations. And while the federal government regulates the nutritional content of lunch entrees, those guidelines don’t apply to à la carte and snack foods.

Other sources of so-called competitive foods can be bake sales, student stores and school marketing clubs. Some marketing clubs—which are designed to teach students business skills—actually serve complete lunches in direct competition with the school lunch, except without the same nutrition and hygiene requirements. A majority of the survey respondents also said competitive foods are sold at their worksite as fundraisers.

The bottom line in combating poor eating habits is to “steer students to more healthy options,” says David Gray, an AFT vice president and president of the Oklahoma City Federation of Classified Employees. “Children tell us the choices they make in school reflect the diet they have at home.”

At Roosevelt Middle School in Philadelphia, Brinkley invites parents to the school four times a year to share the school breakfast and see what the school is serving their children. He also encourages the teachers to eat in the cafeteria with their students, with the idea that adults can be good role models for healthy eating.

If Brinkley had his way, education schools would provide a healthy dose of nutrition education to future teachers. “I truly believe it needs to be embedded in the curriculum,” he says. “It’s too late if we wait until high school.”

That attitude of looking for creative answers to the problem of promoting healthy kids is typical of the kind of dedication that food service employees show every day, but that unfortunately goes unnoticed much of the time. “We take pride in our jobs. We’re not just taking things out of a box and serving them,” Brinkley says. “I love what I do.”