Fourth-Grade Junk Foodies Tell All
Freddy ate a lot of terrible junk food. And when he was going on the school bus he couldn’t fit through the door because he was gigantically overweight. He was overweight because he never did any exercise, he ate doughnuts, hamburgers, pizza, French fries, hot dogs, chips, soda and candy. So he decided to buy Ultra Slim Fast, and he lost 120 pounds, like Tommy Lasorda. Now he eats healthy foods, like chicken, carrots, apples, oranges, low-fat milk, etc. Now he’s happy. He said , “Now I’m going to make healthy choices.”
--Edgardo Henriquez, 11, 9th Street Elementary School, Los Angeles Edgardo is one of 26 fourth graders at Los Angeles’ 9th Street Elementary School who won first prize in a contest that took them on a tour of apple country in Washington State.
It was fun. He says he’d like to do it again. And he might get a chance to--next semester when the program entitled “Healthy Choices for Kids” returns for a second go around. The program, co-sponsored by the Washington Apple Commission and the National Education Assn. (NEA), was prompted by the irony that while adults of the ‘80s were fasting and “Fonda-izing,” kids were becoming fatter than they were 10 years ago.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 40% of the children in the United States are overweight and up to 85% will remain so as adults. “To help our children make healthy choices in their diets and lifestyles,” says Theresa Greco, manager of the Healthy Choices program, “we provided 30,000 elementary school teachers with learning kits that show kids how to implement good dietary habits based on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.”
The presentation that won Edgardo and his schoolmates first prize included a plan to help the homeless in Los Angeles. The plan, dubbed Bill No. 333 (to mimic the language of the U.S. legislative system), called for building five missions, based on the early California mission system. It didn’t have much to do with nutrition, but it gave the kids--many of whom live with their families in hotels in the downtown Los Angeles area--a chance to address their most pressing concerns.
More to the nutritional point was a video developed and created by the fourth graders, which explained their Bill of Rights. “All kids had the right to eat junk food, but they had to pay through the nose with a stiff tax,” says Mike Romero, the fourth-grade teacher who guided his class to first place. “The kids came up with that idea themselves.”
Romero also led AA-like testimonials and confessions by junk foodies in the class.
“I used to drink coffee in the morning with my uncle,” said David Torres, 11. “But since I learned that it’s bad for you, especially if you drink it at night, I stopped. Now I drink low-fat milk for breakfast.”
Torres wasn’t the only coffee drinker. “We kept dietary diaries and found that kids were drinking coffee,” Romero says. “That’s when we went on our campaign to eliminate coffee from the diet.”
Alex Henriquez used to like junk food--”You know, doughnuts, pizza, hamburgers, and all that stuff,” he says. Now his Mom has started adding vegetables, meat and milk to the grocery list. He even has cornflakes, eggs and low-fat milk for breakfast. “It makes you feel better,” he admits.
Oscar Rodriquez, 12, also says he used to like junk food. But since learning about the Four Food Groups--which today have been changed to five groups (fruits and vegetables are now in separate categories)--his tastes have changed. No more junk food. The five food groups call for two to four servings of fruits, three to five servings vegetables, six to 11 servings bread and grains, two to three servings meat and two to three servings milk or dairy products daily.
Greco, of the Washington Apple Commission, says a new program will go into effect this spring. “This time, we’re separating the grade levels to make them more applicable to each age group,” she says. “Our program will harp on the dietary guidelines, which call for eating a wide variety of foods and making healthy choices. There are also plans to translate the program into Spanish.”
Now the Five Food Groups are explained in language 5-year-olds can understand. Granny Smith (yes, she’s supposed to be related to the apple by that name) is the subject of a story about the food groups. It goes something like this:
“Little Red Delicious went to his grandmother’s house for a snack every day after school. And every day, when Granny Smith met him at the door, Red said, ‘I’m starving. What’s to eat?’ ”
So it’s a little heavy on apples. But the story goes on to explain in the grain group lesson that bran muffins and other grain-containing produces have relatives known as tortillas, white bread, whole-wheat bread, rye bread and pumpernickel, crackers, rolls, bagels and biscuits. The grain group also has rice, barley, oatmeal and cereals, including cornflakes, puffed rice, shredded wheat, cream of wheat and grits.
“ ‘And finally,’ Granny said, ‘all the pastas, like spaghetti, macaroni and egg and lasagna noodles, are in the grain group, too.’ ”
Granny talks about vegetables, fruit, meat and dairy groups in the same grandmotherly manner, ending the lesson with a ditty, based on the melody from “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” that goes like this:
GRAIN GROUP Grain Group foods for you and me They give lots of energy Oatmeal, bagels and cornflakes Crackers, biscuits and pancakes Breads and rice and noodles too Tortillas are fun to chew Grain Group foods for you and me They will help us be healthy.
