Better Nutrition Equals Better Education

By Kathleen Rogers

Cafeteria food has always been the brunt of kids' jokes. Many of us remember the grilled cheese sandwich that stuck to the plate when you turned it upside down, and the egg soufflé that jiggled when you poked it. But even that is a far cry from what's served now.

In the midst of a growing childhood obesity crisis, school food now means federally subsidized chicken nuggets, low-grade hamburgers, french fries, hot dogs and pizza. "Cooking" usually involves a centralized kitchen similar to a fast food assembly line.

According to Ron Haskins, senior fellow of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, "behind the overcooked vegetables and steam-table pizza that American children confront each school day is an industry that rivals defense contractors and media giants in its ability to bring home the federal bacon." That industry is agribusiness -- and, via the National School Lunch Program, it has a chokehold on our kids.

The commodities-driven National School Lunch Program, meant to feed 60 million children healthy food, has instead turned into a major public health threat. The most vulnerable in our society are suffering the most severe consequences, including epidemic levels of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses. While we need to be able to include more children in the School Lunch Program, we also need to be able to feed them higher-quality, more nutritious food, or else we are defeating the purpose of the program.

Over the past three decades, rates of obesity in the U.S. have more than doubled among children ages 2 to 5 and more than tripled among those ages 6 to 11. Today, approximately 9 million U.S. children over the age of 6 are considered obese. America's overweight teens consume an average of 700 to 1,000 calories more than they are required each day.

The National School Lunch Program and its affiliated programs have unmatched size and scope, serving more than 35 million lunches every day in almost every school in the U.S., costing taxpayers more than $8.5 billion. Close to 20 million K-12 students receive up to two meals a day, five days a week. The program was recently expanded to include all children enrolled in Head Start and child nutrition programs. The summer food service program feeds 18 million low-income children.

Where does agribusiness come in? Schools participating in the National School Lunch Program receive cash subsidies and commodity foods for each meal served plus bonus commodities from agricultural surplus. The program’s authorizing language requires that participating schools serve the most abundant commodities -- mostly milk and meat, with few fruits and vegetables. In fact, the ties between the government and the commodities industry, aided and abetted by poor nutritional choices by state and local food service officials, trumps federal nutritional guidelines resulting in menu offerings that resemble fast food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture purchases hundreds of millions of pounds of pork, beef, and other animal products as well as surplus corn and wheat primarily as an economic benefit to agricultural interests. This might have been a defensible idea a century ago, when a third of our population worked as farmers; now, only 2 percent of our workforce is in agriculture. However, to help 2 percent of our citizens, these commodities are donated to the School Lunch Program and other food assistance programs. Unfortunately for our children, many of these foods are unhealthy.

Next year, The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, which includes school lunches, will expire and the renewal battle will begin. We must dramatically improve the federal nutrition requirements that guide this program, weaken the ties between the School Lunch Program and the commodities markets, revolutionize the quality of food in our schools, label the salt, fat, and sugar content of each meal served, and educate school officials, regulators and the American public about the School Lunch Program and its potentially disastrous implications for our children's health.

We need a Congressional mandate for higher nutritional values for the School Lunch Program to improve the quality and types of food that are served in K-12 schools, with an emphasis on local foods and organics. However, that's useless unless we complement it with revamped nutrition curriculums for children and parents so that they can learn the value of good nutrition in preventing disease.

Significant progress can and must be made in overhauling school lunches. It will take millions of voices to bring about this change. The cost to the next generation is too high for this battle to be lost.
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Rogers is the president of Earth Day Network.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the American Forum. 1/09

Green Stimulus

By Kathleen Rogers

A massive stimulus package of nearly $600 billion holds promise for the economy, and could mean more federal spending on infrastructure and energy efficiency projects. An estimated $400 billion in that bill will repair lots of bridges and roads, but what will they all lead to? Nothing -- unless we first start building bridges and roads between our economic, climate, and education concerns, and start appreciating the way they’re all connected.

New policy and stimulus needs to take into account that we’re not just trying to save our economy with roads, bridges, and buildings: We’re trying to save ourselves.

Few other national topics are as timely as a discussion of how to build a new green economy nationwide. During his campaign Obama promised to create 5 million green jobs. It is this way of thinking that should shape our country’s future.

One way we can stimulate the economy while going green is to create new, personal carbon savings accounts. These would be tax-free, interest-bearing green energy savings accounts that could be leveraged to help weatherize or green-up one’s home or sold to companies that need carbon credits. It would encourage energy efficiency while allowing a personal stake in emissions reductions.

At a time when we are poised to make our greatest infrastructure investment since the Great Depression, we need to make sure we do it right. Congress seems focused on shovel-ready jobs to its own detriment. We need to ensure this bailout is green, that the bridges and roads lead us to the future -- instead of another dead-end.

Putting together a new green energy program for the U.S. and other countries will require thousands of green jobs in solar, wind, and other renewable sources of energy.

One plan is based on the fact that investing in energy efficient buildings would go a long way to create jobs and help the economy. The so-called Architecture 2030 plan recommends an investment of $171.72 billion over two years combining a housing mortgage buy-down and an accelerated-depreciation program for commercial buildings with energy efficiency. This plan could create over 3 million jobs in the building sector and over 4 million indirect jobs plus an additional 350,000 jobs from consumer spending.

The retrofitting and construction of green schools -- the largest construction sector in the United States -- will do the same. Between 2006 and 2008, we spent $80 billion on school construction. If we build those buildings green, they cost less than 2 percent more to construct; however, they pay for themselves in a few years. Consequently, municipalities with major school systems are increasingly looking at “green building” and renovation as they work to update school facilities and save the district money in utility bills. A green school can save a school enough money to hire two additional teachers -- all while preventing 585,000 lbs of CO2 from hitting the atmosphere.

Which, at the end of the day, helps solve a bigger problem: The economy is in a crisis, but the impacts of climate change are far greater in the long run. Fortunately though, there’s no need to sacrifice one for the other.

Green jobs are in danger of disappearing from the stimulus package, to be replaced with shovel-ready jobs, such as President-elect Obama’s recently announced plans to create thousands of jobs by “weatherizing” houses. While weatherizing houses is important, it is a short-term project for employment. It is not the same as creating lasting high-tech work or building infrastructure. Green jobs, however, are solid, necessary jobs which have a long-term future. What we need now is a firm commitment to include in the stimulus package funds for “green” infrastructure and jobs -- the real way to revitalize the economy and look toward the future.

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has touted other projects like investments in new energy technologies and energy-efficient buildings. We need to hold her and the rest of the Congressional leadership to those promises, demanding that they take bold measures to resolve the economic crisis holistically -- by taking into account the challenges of the climate crisis, the health of our children, and the needs of our workforce, which is waiting for green American jobs that can’t be exported.

Our government must begin the shift towards a global economy driven by massive job creation from the growth of green technology, construction, transportation, and renewable energy. While the road to a green economy might be long, we need to use this opportunity to build it.
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Rogers is the president of Earth Day Network.
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Copyright (C) 2008 by the American Forum. 12/08