Taking a Balanced View

Recently, we listened to the first in a series of webinars held by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Making Schools the Model for Healthier Environments. In a presentation called “Seizing the Moment: Efforts Underway to Improve Our Schools,” Jim Gerstein of Gerstein | Agne Strategic Communications, reported on findings from a recent national phone survey regarding the school meals program. Overwhelmingly, respondents hold schools responsible for making sure children are eating properly throughout the school day. They believe no child should be hungry at school and that funds to support school meals should be as straightforward as providing textbooks for all students.

Victoria Berends, California Project LEAN, emphasized opportunities for policy intervention in schools. Discussion centered on changing the food environment as well as finding ways to increase physical activity, including changes to the physical education curriculum that place more focus on individual fitness levels rather than athletic abilities.

Both presentations reinforced the importance of changing how we think about and provide nutrition and physical education to students to help reverse childhood obesity. However, we also believe that combining and integrating nutrition education delivered by registered dietitian (RD) nutrition coaches with physical education in schools is missing from the national dialogue and deserves more attention.

We’re not proposing taking time away from physical activity; rather, we are suggesting that coaching on the concept of energy balance – balancing calories consumed with calories expended – take place while the student is in motion. We need professionals – P.E. teachers and RD nutrition coaches – to teach our children motor skills and healthy eating habits. This integrated approach is the best way to ensure our children learn that to maintain a healthy weight what they eat and the physical activity they do must be in balance. If all we do is change the food and physical activity environment in our schools and not address the importance of balancing both, we will fall short of our goal.