10/14/2003: Thinking Out of the Box

The pressure is on parents to pack school lunches that provide all-day nutrition and form healthy habits for life.

By Susan Aschoff, Times Staff Writer

Getting healthy foods into a child's lunch box is a worthy goal often bagged by the child's resistance.

The lure of high-sodium Lunchables and sugar-laden box drinks is powerful.

Yet lunch and school-day snacks are crucial in providing the fuel children need to learn, play sports and participate in other activities. Also, good habits in childhood shape a lifetime of sound nutrition.

So Oldways Preservation Trust, a food issues think tank, created a new Web-based program called School Lunch Plus. The plan is different, Oldways says, because it focuses on the realities of all-day eating instead of just mealtime. It emphasizes foods and drinks that promote alertness and energy.

The idea is simple. When packing a lunch, choose one item from each of these food groups: whole grains, protein, vegetables, fruits, treats and drinks. Pick one or two additional items, again from different groups, for snacks.

At its Web site, www.oldwayspt.org, Oldways offers tips on menus, food ideas from around the world and nutrition information.

What's in the lunch sack or served in the cafeteria line seems particularly relevant today. The number of overweight and obese children has almost doubled in two decades.

"Twenty-three years after the Reagan administration tried to turn ketchup into a vegetable in school lunches, budget crunches and politics have turned what was meant to be a nutritious pause into an unhealthy and stressful pain in the stomach," says a report in the current issue of Experience Life magazine.

Although some Tampa Bay area schools ban candy and soft-drink vending machines, others embrace the revenues they provide. In Hillsborough County, officials this summer signed a 12-year deal with Pepsi worth $50-million.

In Pinellas County, three high schools moved the lunch break to the end of the day. With a meal six hours away, students are encouraged to snack. But some of the fare offered from carts is less than healthful: cinnamon rolls, potato chips and cookies.

"If you're going to eat a lot of things that are high in fat and high in sugar, it's not going to give you the nutrients you need," says Angel Collins Wright, certified specialist in pediatric nutrition at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.

Wright suggests wraps, which can be filled with a variety of lean meats or beans and leaf lettuce, tomatoes and salad dressing. Don't buy a Lunchable, Wright says. Pack crackers with different meats and cheeses you select.

The nonprofit Oldways has long warned against junk foods and even popular diets, such as low-fat regimens, which Oldways says lead to overeating and poor health.

Despite protestations from a picky eater, parents must limit choices, says Experience Life. If a child won't eat what is offered, unhealthy favorites cannot be substituted.

Parents need to eat the same way, it advises.

"As a nation, we are failing our children," said Oldways president K. Dun Gifford in a statement.

"We must find new ways to inspire behavior change."

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