New Hampshire lawmakers are considering legislation that would ban certain sugary sodas and foods from public schools.
Since children spend about a thousand hours a year in classrooms, schools can play a vital role in helping children stay healthy.
But as New Hampshire Public Radio's Amy Quinton reports, something's not working.
New Hampshire has a higher rate of childhood obesity than the national average.
It's lunch time for first and second graders at Andover Elementary and Middle School.
About 40 children stand in line with their trays.
At the elementary level, children get little choice in what food they get to eat.
The choice instead is whether they want to eat what's offered.
That doesn't seem to bother eight year old Isaac David.
He says he likes what's on the menu.
"Brownie, bread, potato skin covered in cheese, and salad with dressing on it."
That salad is actually coleslaw.
The USDA requires that school lunches fit nutrition guidelines, one of which is that no more than 30-percent of calories come from fat.
But what schools serve and what children eat are often different things.
Again, Isaac David.
"Usually we get healthy foods and some junk, some junkie foods.
(What do you like the most?) The bread and the brownie.
A recent study conducted by New Hampshire Healthy Schools Coalition suggests that many students make unhealthy eating choices and don't get enough exercise.
It found that 18-percent of New Hampshire girls and 22-percent of boys, fall into the overweight and obese categories.
Another 20-percent are at risk of becoming overweight.
Those results astonished researcher Tammi Martin, with the New Hampshire Healthy Schools Coalition.
"I was absolutely surprised to find the figures because we’re higher than the national standards, which would be five percent in the category we would say is overweight. and there’s national averages of 16 percent, but New Hampshire is significantly higher for both boys and girls."
The study also showed that 88-percent of children can meet minimum fitness levels upon entering school.
But by their second year, less than half can meet those standards.
Andover Elementary and Middle School was one of 20 schools that received a grant to fight obesity through the HNH foundation.
Principal Jane Slayton says the money – 46-hundred dollars - will help buy a salad bar, snowshoes for K through 2 students, and rollerblades.
"Good fitness should be part of their regular lifestyle and there is research that shows that students who are fit are performing better in the classroom and for us its all about having children succeed."
But while school administrators seem to know what’s wrong, they don’t seem to know how to fix it --finding time to eat right and exercise seems to be one of the biggest problems.
Andover Physical Education Teacher Mike Silverstein says with so many schools focusing on testing students, schools are neglecting regular exercise.
"it’s not frequent enough as far as classroom goes cause its only once a week, eighth grade gets twice a week."
The national recommendation is an hour a day.
Silverstein says he doesn’t think there’s an obesity problem at Andover, but he can tell that students aren’t as fit as they used to be.
"If I test them on different things like push ups and sit-ups they’re not passing them all, there’s very few of them that are just going through and passing them all"
Andover Elementary and Middle School opens the gym before and after school so that kids can choose to get more exercise.
Silverstein also tries to teach kids about healthy eating as part of gym class.
(Nat sound)
In this game called cholesterol – kids try to escape evil cholesterol taggers by shouting out a fruit, vegetable or exercise that prevents cholesterol from clogging arteries.
Silverstein says he tries to make gym fun, so that exercise becomes part of a child’s lifestyle.
But exercise is only one part of the equation. Eating right is another.
Children here get 30 minutes to eat lunch.
But in other schools, children may have as little as ten minutes.
Tammi Martin says that’s simply not adequate.
"One of the things that not giving children enough time for school lunch does, it may effect the choice they make they may go for the higher calorie food cause you don’t have enough time, so you go for something that fills you up faster."
And Martin says not all students actually eat the school lunch, most either bring lunch from home, or find junk food in the school.
"A lot of schools have a la carte programs where food is brought in from the outside and is also for sale, there’s fund raising activities going on and lots of times the ability to purchase foods at other venues."
There are also vending machines that sell sodas and candy.
That’s prompted Senator Joe Foster of Nashua to introduce legislation to control what’s sold in those school vending machines.
"Coca-cola we all love it, but it really has no nutritional value and has really high caloric content the same things with some of the snacks that are sold in schools candy bars I think it sends not only a message to kids, but its unhealthy...the message being these type of foods are okay"
Nutrition experts say schools alone can’t prevent childhood obesity.
Parents and the community have to become involved as well.
If nothing is done, experts say the problem will put a huge strain on the health care system, and increase costs in the long run.
The National Institute for Health estimates that obesity already costs society as much as 117 billion dollars a year.
If 70 to 80 percent of today’s overweight children become overweight or obese adults, those costs will double in the next decade.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.
