St. Tammany Schools Getting Healthy With Salad Bars!
We all know vegetables are good for us. Now, some of our youngsters in St. Tammany Parish will have the option of eating a healthy serving daily at school! A total of seven schools in the parish are getting salad bars!
Whispering Forest, Abita Springs Middle School, Creekside and Fontainebleau junior high schools, and Covington, Fontainebleau and Pearl River high schools will all be getting the healthy lunch option. This was all made possible through the Produce Marketing Association which is a member of the National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance and the Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools program.
The salad bars are being donated. Each come at a cost of $2,625.
Why is all of this important? Well, according to the Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools program:
-- Both academic research and actual experience in schools across the country are increasingly demonstrating that school children significantly increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables when given a variety of choices in a school fruit and vegetable salad bar. When offered multiple fruit and vegetable choices, children respond by trying new items, incorporating greater variety into their diets, and increasing their daily consumption of fruits and vegetables.
The benefit of salad bars in schools extends beyond the healthy foods consumed during the breakfast or lunch hour. Increased daily access to a variety of fruits and vegetables provides a personal experience about choices that can shape behavior far beyond the school lunch line. Children learn to make decisions that carry over outside of school, providing a platform for a lifetime of healthy snack and meal choices.
The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity has endorsed schools using salad bars and upgrading cafeteria equipment to support providing healthier foods to kids. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine concluded that schools need to add as many as two servings of fruits and vegetables daily to meals in order to meet children's basic health requirements.
Many school districts are either unaware of the benefits salad bars can bring to their students, or have been unable to afford the basic equipment needed to adopt this strategy. The powerful health benefit that can come with a modern, food-safety compliant salad bar is too often blocked by the prohibitive capital cost in many school districts. Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools is creating the opportunity make change. --
So, it looks like our schools are on their way to better health! If you’d like to see a salad bar in your child’s school visit saladbars2schools.org for more information.
About The Kim Higgins Realty Team: Kim Higgins is a top-producing real estate agent who primarily works out of the Keller Williams Realty Services Mandeville office. Kim services all of the following cities including Mandeville, Covington, Madisonville, Folsom, Abita Springs, and Slidell. For more information on Kim and everything real estate related about the Northshore – log onto her website at www.KimHiggins.com.
Comments(0)