Category: Wellness

How much sunlight do you eat every day?  The caloric sun content of your food is based on where your food is on the food chain.  If you are eating mostly whole foods with no processing you are consuming sunlight, which through the process of photosynthesis allows for plants to grow and absorb nutrients from the soil.

Most Americans have a diet sadly lacking in sunlight, the average American diet consists of one half pound of meat per day, corn, soy and sugar which are consumed as ingredients in highly processed food products.  This low nutrient high calorie diet contributes to the growing health care problems in the US. 

Almost fifty years ago President John F Kennedy created a national initiative to improve the physical fitness of American children.  The president’s council on physical fitness was implemented.  He elevated the importance of physical education making it a requirement in schools.  Today American children are lacking in a high sunlight diet.  The center for disease control estimates that one in three children born in 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes.  What’s needed right now is a new initiative to improve the diets and overall health of children.  

The same commitment to fitness can be applied to a commitment to nutrition or “edible education” as Alice Water’s author of the slow food movement phrased it.    Changing the food culture must begin with our children, and it must begin in school.

Schools can make lunch part of the curriculum, based on the premise that eating well is a critically important life skill.   Every primary school student should be taught the basics of growing and cooking food, and then enjoying shared meals.  The only way to change the current food culture from the meat, corn and soy based chicken nuggets and fries to one of fresh vegetables and fruit is give children the right lessons about food.  These lessons can only be learned if children are allowed to grow, cook and taste what’s being taught. 

This thinking presents a radical change in the status quo.  In the last thirty years Americans have been seduced into eating food that’s fast and easy with little concern given to how it was produced and the health benefits it gives.  It is no coincidence that as spending on health care went from five percent to sixteen percent of national income that spending on food has fallen from eighteen percent to less than ten percent of household income.  Cheap food prices have taken the idea of quality food off the national agenda.  Unfortunately we cannot expect to reform health care without confronting the public health disaster that is the modern American diet.

Every school in American right now has an opportunity to set a new standard, to begin it’s own initiative in educating children who will be healthy consumers demanding and expecting more from the food they eat.   Once schools plant their own seeds of change they can lobby their local districts to do the same.    ”Be the change you want to see,” and begin now. 

Americans look to their doctors to be healthy.   A doctor’s advice is considered gospel, you’ll often hear “my doctor said.”   The irony of this is that the greatest advances in public health did not come from individual doctoring but rather in increasing awareness about health practices and sanitation.   That awareness is responsible for increasing life expectancy in the United States because information is more powerful than any single doctors visit. 

Tragically right now in American’s public schools health awareness is at risk.  Currently there is no dedicated funding for comprehensive sex education in our schools.  Schools have become hostage to political and religious ideology about what’s best for all children. The abstinence only curriculum guarantees that our youth will not learn reproductive information that could potentially not just save their lives but also determine the direction of their lives. 

Today one in four American teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. Nearly half of black teenage girls have at least one sexually transmitted infection.  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention also reported in the study that for the first time in fifteen years the rate of teenage pregnancy has significantly increased.    The United States has high rates of unintended pregnancy, abortion, and STD’s.   And what is our answer to reverse this situation?

Federal funding to schools limits and denies information in our sex education programs.  Abstinence only programs ignore the fundamental precept that sex is powerful in our lives and that it does have consequences.   Education is not taking this problem seriously enough.  Much of what is learned in school is not just learned for the present moment it’s learned to take students through a lifetime of choices.  It’s learned to give children information on how to base decisions.  Decisions about sexual activity happen at all stages of life not just during the teen years. 

What can educators do to improve this situation? 

Become a powerful and compassionate voice for change in your school.  First recognize that all parents fear the possibility of their children having a sexual life, and their greatest desire is that their children delay sexual activity until later into young adulthood.  Often these fears and desires keep parents acting in the most proactive way by demanding a comprehensive program.  The principles of abstinence programs do give a voice to the importance of relationships and communication but they totally lack the substance of information to help children make informed decisions and avoid the consequences.  

Teachers have the ability to engage with parents on the most personal and intimate level.  They both have a child’s best interest at heart.   Teachers can begin a dialogue with parents especially those at the middle school level when students are first given reproductive information.  

So what’s a good way to start?

Approach this taboo subject by bringing awareness to parents about the minefield of influence their children will navigate.  Teens have this perception of being immune of being invulnerable.  Many don’t know what risks they face; they can’t make decisions in the dark because they aren’t properly prepared to make them.   Myths about pregnancy continue like urban legends.  Some girls believe that drinking or douching with coke with prevent a pregnancy.   This type of thinking is a disaster waiting to happen. 

If parents see their child’s teacher and their child’s school as a partner in the future of their children perhaps they will trust educators to make decisions on what’s best for all children instead of politicians.   

How much fuel are you putting into your refrigerator?

It’s hard to imagine putting fuel into your refrigerator but that’s exactly what happens every time we buy food.  The average American puts 400 gallons of oil into their refrigerator every year.  This number is calculated by adding up the distance that food travels from farm to plate and the amount of petroleum-based fertilizer used to grow the food.   If every American ate just one meal a week from locally organic produced food oil consumption would be reduced by 1.1 billion barrels of oil per week. 

This one small change in consumption could make a big difference.   But for many of Americans the sentiment is why bother?  For many it seems hopeless to imagine much less attempt a different sort of life.  The inclination is to put faith in market based solutions.  But much more needs to be done and right now.

All across America a quite revolution has already begun and the 1000 students at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley California are part of it.  This school is home to the Edible Schoolyard Project.   An idea that started with a vacant lot has evolved into a one-acre organic garden and kitchen classroom.  In this program children grow and prepare the whole foods they will eat.   Not only are these students gaining nutrition and ecological knowledge they could be the key to our future.   This systems approach addresses the crisis of childhood obesity while making food production truly sustainable. 

If this urban school of 1000 students can feed itself than the possibility of every American either growing or purchasing locally produced food is not just a talking a point.  

Here are some things to consider:

·      Growing some of your own food sets an example for others. If enough people bother, each one influences the other.  Consciousness is raised, maybe even changed.

·      Planting a garden is one of the most powerful things an individual can do.  It reduces your carbon footprint but it also reduces your sense of dependence.

·      Growing your own food begets a new set of solutions and changes other habits; you learn to provide other things for yourself.

·      The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is it changes your relationship to the planet.  It’s a long season from seed to vegetable and you get to experience it all.

Schools can introduce and nurture this concept with their students.  For many students school is the only way  to experience this lesson.  Every teacher can begin this simply by starting seeds in paper cups.  Start with popular and easy to grow vegetables, tomatoes plants, cucumbers, carrots, radishes are just a few.   Students can be encouraged to take these pots home to plant in the ground or a bigger pot.   Teachers can also introduce students to local produce by taking field trips to farmers markets and local farms.  With a little imagination and planning every classroom can begin to teach sustainability.   Students will discover a new way to provide for themselves without diminishing the planet.  Our future relies more on action than hope.