Susan Floerchinger

Bozeman schools are setting the bar with their wellness plan. The policy requirements for the local wellness program are established in Section 204 of the Public Law 108-265, of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004. This Act requires school districts that take part in the National Lunch and/or Breakfast programs to develop a local wellness policy to promote the health of the students and address the epidemic of childhood obesity and goes beyond the USDA funded meal programs to influence children’s health. The Bozeman Public Schools have a total of 11 schools with about 5,400 students and 750 full and part-time staff; serving around 2,300 meals per day using some locally grown foods such as winter squash, lentils, and potatoes to name a few. The kindergartner through seniors in high school receive nutritional education arming them with the knowledge and skills to adopt healthy eating behaviors to last a lifetime. More than 31 million children take part in the National school lunch program and 11 million in the breakfast program. Many children consume half of their calorie intake at school, making good nutrition at school even more important.  Over 65 million American children live in low-income neighborhoods known as food deserts, meaning they have limited access to affordable quality and nutritional foods.

In 2008, the USDA reported an estimated 16.7 million children were living in households where hunger is experienced multiple times a year. Breakfast is the key to achievement as most core subjects are taught in the morning classes, requiring more consideration and focus from students. Nation wide students state the reasons they don’t eat breakfast at home as they are not hungry when they first get up, not enough time, or there is no one to prepare a meal for the younger children. Those students who forgo breakfast are more likely to fall behind because of a lack of focus due to hunger. A typical school breakfast provides foods from at least three food groups such as fruit, juice, cereal and/or milk. You may learn more about alternative breakfast options by visiting www.asfsa.org.

The Hawthorn school’s Recess Before Lunch program, under Mr. Robert Barrows the Support Services Supervisor Food Services Director; received a USDA Healthier US School Challenge Gold Award in 2008, being recognized for exemplary efforts in serving healthful meals and providing nutritional education as well as opportunity for the children to be physically active. The District’s food program is self-supporting through the fees charged for the meals, federal funds and children grades 4-12 may contact their school’s secretary about working in the cafeteria performing tasks such as serving and washing tables for 20 minutes a day to earn a lunch. The prices for an elementary breakfast start at $1.30 and progress to $3.25 for an adult lunch; 7% of the students are eligible for free or reduced priced meals. The Recess Before Lunch program has been noted to improve student behavior on the play ground, cafeteria and in the classroom. Students waste less food and drink more milk; they are also ready to calmly settle into an afternoon of studies.

The Bozeman School District’s web site allows parents to set up a school meal account and prepay for meals with a major debit or credit card, or an existing Pay Pal account.  Paper checks can be made out to Bozeman Schools Food Services with the child’s full name in the memo line. When setting up your meal account, each child will have their own account that you may print out an eating history report that shows all meal purchases in the last 30 days. There is an online prepayment service charge for each transaction, but the good news is even if you have multiple meal accounts you will only be charged this fee once for all your accounts. If you have questions please call the Supportive Office at 522-6380 for more information.

Parents play a key role in educating children in making healthy food choices and activities. Only one-third of all high school students are getting the recommended amount of physical activity a day. In the May 2006 CDC guidelines for Physical Activity, it is noted that regular physical activity in childhood and adolescence improves strength and endurance, controls weight, improves self-esteem and many other positive health effects. In 2007, the percentage of high school students participating in Physical Activity and Physical Education at least 60 minutes per day are as follows: Physical Activity – girls 25.6%, boys – 43.7%, Physical Education – girls 27.3 %, and 33.2% boys. Moderate activity is defined as brisk walking, bicycling, playing actively or dancing, vigorous activity is running, skipping, jumping rope, in-line or roller skating. The average amount of time spent watching tv, movies, using cell phones, computers or video games by high school students is 7.5 hours.

The Bozeman School’s Healthy Habits Challenge promotes play outdoors for one hour or more five days a week, ride bike with a friend, drink two glasses of milk every day and try different foods. Students who take up the challenge will be equipped with knowledge, skills and values to support a healthy, active lifestyle. All children K-12 have the opportunity to participate in regularly supervised, organized, or unstructured physical activities. Children learn more from the examples around them so the entire family should try to adopt healthier habits not only to be supportive of the child’s programs at school but to maintain a healthier lifestyle for their own being. We all depend far too much on drive-through windows, delivery and microwave foods to make our hectic life easier, but we are cutting ourselves and our children short on quality time we could be spending with them when cooking meals together, taking walks or playing a quick game of tag before dinner. These activities not only will make us physically healthier, they will also bring us emotionally closer to our loved ones.