School Lunch in NYC

We've previously celebrated the change in the New York City Public Schools lunch program that made lunch free for all students, removing the "free lunch" stigma from those students whose access to no-cost meals set them apart from their classmates. Breakfast, lunch, and after school meals are all now free for all New York City public school students. But there have been other changes happening in what NYC children are eating in school.

Efforts are underway to have food offerings better reflect the diversity of the City's 1.1 million students, in over 1,700 public schools. NYC Public Schools serves over 940,000 meals each day. The goal is to provide healthier options while offering appetizing choices that children will actually eat. Uneaten food means children are not getting the nutrition they need, which can impact their alertness and energy in class. And food dumped in the trash adds to the problem of waste management, something the NYC Department of Education is working to address by encouraging zero waste and effective recycling.

The first step in creating tasty, healthy meals takes place in the NYC Public Schools test kitchen, located in Long Island City. It is here that a staff of more than 15 chefs creates menu items and, as noted in a piece in the NY Daily News, tests them on groups of 300 students several times each year. The threshold for adding an item to the menu is approval by 80% of the student taste testers. Among menu changes over the past few years is the elimination of deep frying, saturated fat, and high fructose corn syrup and the introduction of Asian and Cajun spices and a number of organic ingredients. Pilot programs introducing halal and kosher foods are also being tried.

In addition to being appealing to their "customers," the student diners, those developing school menus have a number of other considerations, including ease of preparation in individual school kitchens and availability of ingredients in bulk or through federal food supplies. It can take over two years for a new menu item to make it to school cafeterias throughout the city. So, the next time you stare into your refrigerator, freezer, or pantry and try to figure out what to cook for dinner, you might want to consider that it is far more difficult to feed a "family" of close to one million than it is to figure out what to feed your own family tonight.

Who Says There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch?

Here at The Yellin Center we love our lunch. Some folks bring interesting things they've cooked at home. Others order from the limitless selection our Manhattan location provides. And for birthdays and other special occasions we all get together for pizza or some other treat.

So it was a particular pleasure to hear that all students in New York City public schools will now be able to get both breakfast and lunch for free. What this means is that the 75 percent of the 1.1 million New York City public school students who qualify for free or reduced price lunch (breakfast has been free for all students) need not identify themselves or have any stigma attached to their "free lunch" status. All families are asked to complete a School Meals Form to enable the school system to get federal funds for this program.

While we are on the subject of lunches, a piece earlier this week in  The New York Times looks at how school lunches nationwide may change under the current federal administration. Whether or not changes implemented under the Obama administration designed to make lunches healthier -- more fruits and vegetables, less unhealthy ingredients -- are rolled back, it is clear that local communities are more aware of healthy eating and that school lunches will reflect both this trend and local food preferences.

Getting kids involved in food preparation can only raise their interest in healthy eating and bring families together. We've written before about ChopChop, a terrific resource for teaching kids about healthy cooking. It's worth checking out. Even if your child takes advantage of a free healthy lunch in school, there is always dinner that needs to be prepared!

Sugar Cravings in Kids

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow and, like Halloween, that may mean a tidal wave of heart-shaped candies is about to take over your child’s diet. In preparation for this celebration of sweets and sweethearts, we have some tips for helping your children (and yourself!) learn to curb those sugar cravings. These recommendations come from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Intuitive Eating program, set out in a book by two forward-thinking nutritionists.

Even though we’re all born with a love of sweet foods, a full-fledged sweet tooth and the cravings that come with it are more a product of our environment. Eating a diet high in sugar leads us to crave more foods with even more sugar. The first step to reducing our “need” for sugar, therefore, is figuring out all the places that extra sugar is getting into our and our children’s food. There are the obvious culprits, of course – candy, baked goods, sugary cereals – but it can be quite surprising, and unsettling, to realize just how prevalent sugar is when it comes to foods we may think of as healthy. Much of the packaged and processed food sold at grocery stores is loaded with sugar. Some particularly naughty culprits are granola, yogurt, beverages, jams or jellies, canned fruit, and tomato sauce. Foods marketed as “low fat” also often have extra sugar to replace the taste you lose when you remove the fat. Figuring out the biggest contributors can help you and your family develop a battle plan to start cutting back.

Barring a child from enjoying a treat every now and then, especially on a holiday that more or less is focused on sharing sweet treats with friends, is an unrealistic endeavor. However, there is plenty of room for cutting back. Two of the most common “uses” of candy are rewards and bribes. It’s tempting to use some chocolate to get your child to finish her homework, or take them out for a sundae after earning a high mark. However, associating sugar with the feeling of relief (finishing homework) and pride (getting good grades) has the potential to devalue both the sugary treat and the activity or endeavor. Instead of turning to sweets, consider some potential alternatives. For example, lots of children crave nothing more than honest, effort-focused praise after they’ve done something really noteworthy, just so they know you are really proud. The American Academy of Pediatrics also warns against the growing “tolerance” to candy as bribes and rewards; eventually, children are going to expect bigger and bigger incentives, potentially negating their natural motivation to succeed and feel good about their work.

Another area to reconsider is the use of sweets as a marker of celebrations. Birthdays, sports games, holidays, and family milestones are often defined by a cake or other sugary sweet. Some schools have begun trading in the birthday cupcakes for healthier options, or celebrating in a different way altogether. When your blogger was in elementary school, a school birthday was focused exclusively on the treat, even though there are plenty of other ways to spend those twenty minutes. Maybe the class can snack on some strawberries while the birthday child leads a game of freeze dance. Birthday parties and sports games also seem to be dominated by brightly frosted cupcakes and candy bars, but it’s likely that fruit and popcorn will go over just as well if the kids are really engaged in having a good time with the activities.

Finally, consider changing the culture around “junk food” in your house. Rather than making chocolate and cookies the forbidden food under tight lock and key, make them available just like all the healthy food you’re already offering around the clock. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but we all know that we crave what we can’t have. Helping kids learn how to balance their nutritional needs and make choices that will make them feel good on the inside is a surefire way to set them up for good eating habits. That doesn’t mean your nine-year-old isn’t going to eat one too many cookies every now and again, but habits are developed throughout our childhoods, and kids will naturally choose foods that their bodies need if all the options are on the table.

If you are considering recalibrating the way your household consumes sweets and treats, don’t forget to be open and honest with every member of the family about it. Even young children can understand the value of nutrition, and we know that they’re much more likely to be on board if they have a voice in the matter.

For more information about some healthier snack options for growing bodies, the American Academy of Pediatrics has published a short guide that may be helpful.

Are Two Breakfasts Better Than One?

We always thought that providing free breakfasts in school was a no brainer. What could be detrimental about making sure that school children started the day with proper nutrition? In fact, study after study has confirmed the importance of a good breakfast to helping students get the most out of school.

Statistics tell us that free school lunch is far more common than free breakfast. According to the Food Research and Action Center (and Emma Brown of the Washington Post) for every 100 students who receive a free or subsidized lunch, only 54 are eating a free or subsidized breakfast. Even so, concerns have been raised that students receiving breakfast in school might also be eating at home before they head out for the day. These students would be eating two breakfasts and, presumably, taking in more calories than they needed.

It turns out that this concern is unfounded and that it is the students who skip breakfast completely who are at greater risk of obesity. In a study conducted by Dr. Marlene Schwartz of the University of Connecticut’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, approximately 500 students in a dozen schools were followed from fifth through seventh grades. The goal of the study was to determine where the students ate breakfast – home or school, in both locations, or not at all – and to track the height and weight of the students to determine how these breakfast choices impacted obesity.

Among the findings were that breakfast frequency declined over time as students aged; significantly more students skipped breakfast in seventh grade than earlier. Students who generally skipped breakfast altogether or who ate breakfast inconsistently (more common in girls than boys) were twice as likely to be overweight or obese as those who at breakfast both at home and at school.

The authors could come to no definite conclusion as to why those students who skipped breakfast were significantly more likely to be overweight. They raised several possibilities, including the fact that the school breakfasts were required to be nutritionally sound, so that they were unlikely to cause weight gain and the fact that students who skipped breakfast completely might become so hungry that they ate more later. Clearly, more study is needed to better understand how to encourage students to eat in a way that will benefit their health. 

Four Tips to Help Kids Maintain a Healthy Weight

At the Yellin Center, we devote a lot of focus to students’ minds and brains. But the health of their bodies impacts their learning, too, and childhood obesity is one of the most common health problems faced by young people today. Children who are obese are far more likely than their slimmer counterparts to grow into obese adults. They are at risk for a host of health problems as they grow older, including Type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart attack. And obesity wreaks an emotional toll as well as a physical one: overweight children are more likely to be bullied and to suffer from poor self-esteem.

According to Dr. Chad Hayes, author of the pediatrics and parenting blog Chad Hayes M.D.  and pediatric resident physician in South Carolina, a few small changes are often all that’s needed, particularly if your child is still growing. Most overweight kids don’t need to shed pounds; rather, if they can maintain their current weight as they grow, things will balance out on their own.

Dr. Hayes reminds parents to focus on kids’ health, not on the numbers on the scale or kids’ appearance. He also offers parents the following four tips to help their kids attain, and maintain, a healthy weight:

1) Chew your calories. In other words, offer only calorie-free beverages. Juices, a common part of children’s diets, are filled with sugary, mostly empty calories and don’t curb kids’ appetites. The calories from just one serving of a sweetened beverage per day (juice, Gatorade, sweet tea, etc.) are enough to add up to a weight gain of 10 pounds per year. Hayes believes that once children are old enough to obtain adequate nutrition from solid foods, the only beverage they need is water. Sound boring? We suggest sparkling water. Or try keeping a pitcher of water filled with lemon or cucumber slices or mint leaves in the refrigerator for variety. Remember that unsweetened iced tea is calorie-free, too (although most types contain caffeine, which should be used in moderation and only for older children), and many fruit-flavored teas are available.

2) Stop bringing junk into the house. Suburban parents, we’re talking especially to you, here. Many kids in New York City can pick up their own snacks because of the freedom and autonomy offered by a pedestrian-dominated city, but the average suburban family has to drive to obtain groceries. That means parents have almost total control over whether their kids have access healthful foods or junky snacks. “If it’s not there,” says Hayes sensibly, “they won’t eat it.” Offer low-fat string cheese, fresh or dried fruit, sliced vegetables, air-popped popcorn, or raw nut mixes instead of chips and cookies (and don’t forget to keep an eye on kids’ portions).

3) Eat from farms. Nutrition labels can be confusing, but luckily the best foods for you tend not to have labels at all. Pick up foods that don’t come in packages, like fruits and vegetables. Hayes suggests navigating the grocery store strategically by shopping only around the perimeter, where the produce, butcher, and dairy sections tend to be located. The center aisles are home to processed food and should be avoided, especially when one shops with children who may beg for the things they see there.

4) Get moving. Banish kids to the backyard or park, if those are safe places for them to go on their own. If not, accompany them and transport yourselves on foot or bicycle if that’s a reasonable choice. Busy parents can try to coordinate with neighbors to share supervision duties or sign kids up for sports teams of all kinds; look for options like rock climbing at an indoor gym or tae kwon do if your child isn’t much of a jock. Remember that biweekly participation in a sport is not license to supersize kids’ diets, though. Hayes cautions that it’s a lot easier to eat 200 calories than it is to burn them.

Nutrition News... And More

Sometimes it seems like one subject just shouts out to be the subject of a blog post -- and today that subject is nutrition.

First, we came upon an engaging new book called Jesse's Magic Plate - The Fun Way for Kids to Learn About Healthy Eating, by Donna Daun Lester, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and teacher.


Written as a read-aloud story for children as young as three and to be read on their own by older children, this colorfully illustrated book uses a magical plate to explain healthy eating in terms children can apply to their own eating preferences. Lester uses the idea of "power foods" and the benefits they bring to children to encourage children to try new, healthy foods. As the magical plate explains to Jesse when telling him about the importance of eating colorful fruits and vegetables, "We feel our best when we eat them, but it may take some practice to like some of them."

The book is based upon the USDA My Plate food guidance system, and Lester urges her readers to visit the site and use its wealth of information.

Jesse's Magic Plate includes separate sections with lists of healthy foods, broken down by category -- protein, grains, vegetables, etc. -- along with colorful illustrations of food groups. Several pages of illustrated faces and other components for children to use to make their own "magic" plates are also included.We particularly liked that this book is designed for children, to help them understand the benefits of healthy eating and the steps they need to take to make eating better part of their daily lives. Parents can't always be around to help children make smart food choices and it is crucial to empower kids to enable them to make wise food decisions on their own.

Of course, not every food is right -- or even safe -- for every child, and food allergies can be a huge concern for many families. We recently encountered the mouth-watering baked goods created by No Nut Nation, which are certified free of peanuts and tree nuts. If this is an issue for a child or an adult in your life, this can be a delicious solution to finding safe prepared baked goods.

And, finally, a new article published as a supplement to Pediatrics earlier this week, builds on studies of a group of about 1,500 children who were followed closely up to age one. The follow up studies looked at several aspects of the children's nutrition when they reached age six. Among the findings were that early preferences for fruits and vegetables -- and for sugary beverages -- developed during the first year of life were still evident at six years of age. As the researchers noted, "It is not clear whether these associations reflect the development of taste preference during infancy or a family eating pattern that manifests at various ages, but the studies do point to the need to establish healthful eating behaviors early in life."

ChopChop: Healthy Cooking with Kids

The bad news: Child obesity is on the rise, our diets include increasing amounts of processed food, and it seems that more and more kids aren’t getting the nutrients they need. According to the Mayo Clinic, kids with unhealthy eating habits are likely to continue those habits into adulthood, putting them at risk for a host of dangerous health problems.

The good news: Children and even teenagers tend to listen to their parents about nutrition (really!) and tend to follow their lead. According to experts, family cooking sessions are great opportunities to talk about nutrition, encourage kids to try new things (even picky eaters are more likely to dig in when they've had a hand in the preparation of unfamiliar foods), and, of course, have fun.

For parents interested in cooking with their children, ChopChop is an invaluable resource. The mission of the organization is to inspire kids to cook real food, and their products give kids the know-how to do just that. ChopChop produces a cookbook (containing “more than 100 super yummy crazy fun totally doable recipes”) and a quarterly magazine in Spanish or English. Each issue of ChopChop includes inexpensive, kid-friendly, healthy recipes, fun food facts, games and puzzles, and interviews with admirable public figures who are committed to healthy lifestyles. Recipes are accompanied by clear, step-by-step instructions – all of which begin with the mandate that kids wash their hands and clean the counter.

Even non-subscribers can access ChopChop’s collection of recipes on their website where fare is divided into five categories: breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and snacks. It’s difficult to imagine anybody not finding something to suit his or her tastes among delicious, hugely diverse options like chicken soup, panzanella, Parmesan yogurt dip with carrots, toshikoshi soba, sunshine smoothies, chai tea, German pancakes…hungry yet? The website, cookbook, and magazine are colorful, accessible, and appealing. Information is conveyed in simple language and accompanied by vivid pictures of food, and of kids in the midst of cooking up a storm.

ChopChop doesn't post calorie counts or nutritional content, or demonize any individual foods, though their content is reviewed by a team of medical and nutritional advisors. One of ChopChop’s most valuable lessons can be learned simply by scrolling through the appealing pictures of the dishes they recommend: healthy eating can, and should, be fun, adventurous, and delicious.

Bon Appetit!

Book Review: What Chefs Feed Their Kids

Most parents would agree that it’s important to teach children to appreciate a wide variety of healthy, nutritious foods from a young age. To professional chefs who are also parents, however, it’s easy to imagine that this principle holds more weight than it does in the average home. Fanae Aaron, a new mother, found herself wondering what chefs put on their own kitchen tables as she took on parenting for the first time. She began to make inquiries of chefs around the country, and the result is the cookbook What Chefs Feed Their Kids: Recipes and Techniques for Cultivating a Love of Good Food .

The recipes in the book are diverse in both flavor and nutrition. As an added bonus, most are relatively simple to prepare, as most chefs have little time to devote to their domestic kitchens before rushing out the door to work in professional ones. You can view some sample recipes on the book’s website above, or in a New York Times article about the book.

Not only are the recipes appealing, but the book itself is very user friendly. Aaron demonstrated keen insight when she recognized that different foods appeal to children of different ages; she chose to divide the book into chapters based on a child’s age instead of by types of dishes. The first chapter, meant for parents of infants, features a series of tasty purees, while the next few chapters are for toddlers (ages 1-2 ½), preschoolers (ages 2 ½ to 5), big kids (ages 5-8), and early adolescents (ages 8-11). Here’s hoping that the tasty dishes in this book will elevate your child out of his grilled cheese rut!

Teachers College Opens Academic Festival to the Community

On April 21st, Teachers College will host its fourth annual Academic Festival. This year’s offerings will center around the theme “Rewiring the Learning Landscape.” Various panels will explore technology and its effect on education and the world at large. Topics will include online communities, social media and adolescence, teaching financial literacy, and virtual access to art.

Though most of the day will focus on lectures and panels more appropriate for adults, there are opportunities for kids to have fun, too. For those with young children, WeBop is sure to please both you and your little one. Come learn about this early childhood jazz education program, designed for kids ages 8 months to 5 years. Families can learn about instruments used in jazz and explore the musical genre, as well as express themselves together through dance! (Watch the video below for more about WeBop.)

Kids ages 6 and up are also welcome to enjoy a cooking demonstration and food sampling hosted by nutritionist Pam Koch.

Visit the festival webpage for detailed information about the agenda and other useful information.

Thursday Links: Paying Kids to Study, Bullying Students with Disabilities, and more

Should We Pay Kids to Study? (NPR)
Hyper One Day, Calm the Next (Scientific American)
Students With Disabilities Often Targeted by Bullies (On Special Education)
Where Digital Natives Roam, Paper and Pencil Have Place, Too (Gotham Schools)
Study Warns Against Energy Drinks for Kids, Teens (Washington Post)



Photo used under Creative Commons from striatic

Diet and Attention

A small, but interesting study in the latest issue of The Lancet looks at the impact of diet on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children. Working on the hypothesis that diet might be a contributing factor in attention difficulties, researchers looked at children from 4-8 years of age who were placed on a limited diet of rice, meat, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, and wheat products. After 5 weeks more than 60 percent of the children showed improvement in their ADHD scores of at least 40%.

What is also interesting about this study is what it did not demonstrate: that restricting diets based on individual antibody testing (IGg tests) was of any use in reducing attention symptoms. There are some alternative medicine practitioners who do extensive IgG testing and then make recommendations based upon the results of such tests. In this study there was no evidence that the antibody testing correlated with symptoms.

It is important to keep in mind that this study of only 100 children is so small that it lacks what is called "statistical power". Also, the change in attention parameters was limited. Still, I expect that given the public interest in matters relating to attention this may be noted in the mainstream media. Although I view it with interest, I would not change practice based upon this article.

Getting Kids to Eat Healthy

The U.S. Department of Agriculture just announced a new $1 million grant to Cornell University, along with smaller grants totaling another $1 million to other institutions, to look at how behavioral economics can be used to encourage kids to eat healthier meals at school and elsewhere. The program has been nicknamed BEN, since it involves Behavioral Economics and Nutrition.

The USDA is already in the school breakfast and lunch business in a big way; some 11 million children eat breakfast at school each day and 31 million participate in the National School Lunch Program. This new grant is designed to establish a new, research focused center at Cornell, the Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs. The other grants look at how small changes in schools can impact changes in how children eat. For example, the Baylor College of Medicine will work with Houston, Texas schools where cafeteria staff will "nudge" children towards healthier choices and families will get information on school menus and recommended foods via a website, Facebook, and Twitter.


In Utah, researchers at Brigham Young University will look at how placement of healthy foods on lunch lines, replacing vending machine choices with healthy foods, and providing small incentives to eat fruits and vegetables will change the way children eat in several local schools.


Every parent has his or her own rules -- or tricks -- to get kids to eat healthier. It's good to see that schools are being encouraged to try some behavioral interventions to improve nutrition and to investigate what can effect change. Children need adequate nutrition for maximum learning. And they need to eat healthier to help turn around our national crisis of obesity. 

Monday Links

Conversing Your Way to Better Math Performance (Math Hub)

Teens with ADHD delay degree or drop out (USA Today)

Interviews regaining foothold in college admissions (Wa. Post)

Summer Camp for the Cool and Career-Conscious (NY Times)

A Food Bill We Need (Washington Post)

Photo by Dmitry Kichenko

Has Your Child Had Breakfast?

February is National Hot Breakfast Month, one of innumerable "holidays" created by marketing and advertising firms to promote specific products. But before we dismiss this pseudo-holiday as a creation of food company promoters, let's look beyond its origins to the importance of breakfast -- hot or cold -- to the academic performance of children.

Studies suggest that even generally well nourished students who skip breakfast have some reduction in their memory and attention processes. For students who generally lack good nutrition, the impact of regular, healthy breakfasts is even more pronounced. These students, who are usually studied as part of reviews of the impact of school breakfast programs, show not just gains in memory and cognitive areas, but improve their attendance, behavior, and other important keys to success in school as well.

As we all rush around on school and work days, it's difficult to get children to eat anything, let alone a nutritionally sound breakfast. Some parents have taken a creative approach to this problem by giving kids food they like, that they can grab as they leave the house. A box of low fat milk or 100% juice with a slice of leftover pizza, a peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread, or a cereal or granola bar carefully vetted for nutritional content, can all get a reluctant breakfast eater started on a better day in school. And for those students who will eat a healthy breakfast at home, hot cereal is an inexpensive choice and one that takes only a few minutes in the microwave. However you solve the breakfast dilemma, keep in mind that having a good breakfast will make a difference for your student once class begins.