Blog 10: Crawford County reluctantly prepares for Michelle Obama's 'healthy kids' bill
First Lady Michelle Obama created the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act in 2010, which will drastically change the nutritional standards for school meals across the United States. Crawford County school districts have met the act with some resistance because of increased food costs of following the new mandates.
The Nutrition Group, based in Irwin, Pa, provides food to all the public school districts in Crawford County, Pa: Titusville Area School District, Crawford Central School District and PENNCREST School District.
They also feed students at schools outside the three districts, such as the Bethesda Children's Home in Meadville, Conneaut Lake High School and the Crawford County Career and Technical School.
INTERACTIVE: Check out this timeline below of contract beginnings between The Nutrition Group and Crawford County schools. Titusville Area School District just signed with them two years ago.
When Crawford County schools started contracts with The Nutrition Group:
Melissa Kingen, the regional manager at The Nutrition Group, deals with the changes to the school meals as a result of the new act on a daily basis.
"Yes, parents and administrators communicated concerns," said Kingen. "Of course school lunch gets bashed for making the kids obese, but these kids are only in school 180 days in a year."
Kingen has received many questions about the impact of this act on the lunches of the students, mostly to tune of why the government is trying to control what the kids eat.
"I haven't had one parent or school administrator say to me, 'Wow, this is great," Kingen said. "It's been the opposite."
As a result of this new legislation, the schools would have to offer healthier options in school lunches, such as larger portion sizes for fruits and vegetables and increased use of whole grains. However, these changes will make the lunches more expensive.
It's going to cost an additional $.38 for breakfast and $.50 cents for lunches, according to Kingen. The act also discourages the use of processed foods so Kingen expects some cost increases by buying foods with lower sodium content from manufacturers, since processed foods are cheaper.
"With all the low income families, it's expensive to eat healthy," Kingen said. "Whole grains cost more than your normal white bread,"
Kingen is also a parent of an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old. She's a big believer that her children need physical activity as much as nutrition.
"They need to be outside not playing inside on video games," she said. "I think a lot of things in this plan are great but overall physical activity is so important."
If the act passes through all the appropriate offices on the federal level, it will go into effect in January of 2012.
Kingen personally believes Obama's act is helping children lead healthier lives, but she maintains that The Nutrition Group can only do so much if the act only affects school lunches.
"We don't feed them on weekends, we don't feed them at night," Kingen said. "I don't do the grocery shopping when these children get home."
SCREENSHOT: Big changes will be in store for school menus like this one at Conneaut School District Middle/Senior High School.
Frank Schreck is a member of the Board of Directors at the Crawford Central School District. He is not pleased with upcoming changes to the school meals.
"Taking away their mac and cheese or peanut butter sandwiches?" said Schreck. "They'll be given stuff for lunch that I wouldn't want to eat."
Schreck plans to have his children bring brown bag lunches to school instead.
Kingen is concerned that some of their schools are going to abandon the school lunch program because of the act and discontinue their contracts with The Nutrition Group.
"A lot of the smaller schools are just going to say forget it," she said. "That would be really sad because if kids bring their own lunches to school, it won't be as healthy."
MAP: As seen below, the number of schools The Nutrition Group works with is ubiquitous on Crawford County. Most every child and family in and around Meadville, Pa. will be affected by the Healthy, Hungry-free Kids Act.
RED = Crawford Central School District
GREEN = PennCrest School District
BLUE = Titusville School District
YELLOW = Independent schools that also buy from The Nutrition Group
gracieabrams
2087
romaincrisis
origamiaround
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
jimmyeatworldofficial
germansingergirl
