The challenge at St. Mary's Middle School was to get 570 kids eating smarter and better. The question was how to accomplish it.
Using a Highmark Healthy High 5 School Challenge grant, nurse Melissa Cadori initiated the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables program, offering veggies with low-fat dip and fruit with fat-free dip in place of snack cakes sold as a la carte options.
"The biggest thing for me," she recalls, "was to dispel the myth that kids want junk food. After we did a survey and set up posters around the school focusing on healthy choices and the fat/calorie/nutritional content of foods, the students were excited that they were going to get new things in the cafeteria."
The results were more than impressive. At the end of the school year, St. Mary's Middle School was selling an average of 90 salads at lunch, while snack sales were down more than 50 percent. Such positive results have helped more than their waistlines.
"For these kids," nurse Cadori says, "making good choices, and feeling they have the power to make a difference, has had a positive effect on their self-esteem. We also found that providing accurate, clear information, then allowing them to make choices, resulted in the students making good, healthy choices."
"We often don't give kids enough credit," she adds. "Given the opportunity, they'll make the right choices. That's inspiring to me and healthy for them."
Learn about helping kids make healthy food choices by reading our Nutrition pages.
Learn more about Highmark Healthy High 5 School Challenge grants.
This story was originally published in an April 5, 2009, advertising supplement for Highmark Healthy High 5.