Recently, Education Support Professionals (ESPs) got together in San Francisco, CA for our national NEA Education Support Professionals conference. This included three days of workshops to help us network, advocate and find our voice for a wide variety of issues facing our professions.
The workshop title, “Food Fight!” was a play on words. No actual fight with food took place. However, it had a dual meaning for school food service workers. There seems to be a food fight everywhere we turn. Someone, some organization, some government entity is shouting to anyone that will listen, their philosophy of how to better serve school children with their understanding of nutrition issues. There is a constant fight to ensure their way is administered.
Food service workers (“Lunch Ladies” as we are known to our students) have a different understanding of how nutrition issues play out each day across the nation in our schools. From obesity to food scarcity, we see them all.
Our workshop (Food Fight) focused on improving the quality and profitability of school food service programs to promote student health and build support for school foods. We discussed the necessity of healthy, wholesome foods and the positive impacts it has for students. There are, of course, challenges for school food service programs to implement the new nutrition guidelines successfully. But we also learned that, the majority of schools are getting it right. From portion sizes to whole grains, we are seeking to implement healthier standards in our schools.
However, when schools are in direct competition with other food sources, we ourselves are in danger. The danger comes in the form of threats of outsourcing, finger pointing and loss of moral. We must advocate for our professions so that administration and school boards will not mistakenly believe that outsourcing will relieve their administrative and financial headaches. Involving all ESP’s, teachers, parents, and community members to help raise awareness about nutritious school meals that will help students succeed in the classroom and ultimately in life.
In our discussion with nutrition professionals around the nation, we realized that we play a part in the fate of our children, their health and wellness, through school meals. We must continue to encourage students, and in some cases ourselves, to make healthy food choices. Our goal is to use our knowledge to help each student reach their full potential, thereby becoming tomorrow’s productive citizen. In America, we all (should) get a chance….what we do with that chance is our decision. Worrying about healthy, wholesome food should not be on our plate as citizens of the greatest nation on earth. We need to become a nation that exemplifies healthy eating habits. Eating to live, and not living to eat.
For more information on how to improve the quality and profitability of your school food service program visit:
NEA HIN’s Bag the Junk: healthyfutures.nea.org
National Farm to School Network: www.farmtoschool.org
Let’s Move!: letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov