Here’s a Shocker…Kids Need Good Food and Emotional Support

Here’s an obvious reality: health and emotional wellbeing are positively correlated with high standardized test scores.  For those of you who need research to support this evident claim, a study conducted by Ickovics, Carroll-Scott, Peters, Schwartz, Gilstad-Hayden and Caslin (2012) found among 5^th & 6^th graders, those with more health assets did better on reading and math standardized tests.  Most people would not be surprised by these findings.

In the study, health assets were defined as attributes contributing to better health.  Assets were estimated based on things like servings of fruits and veggies consumed per day, or conversely, the amount of fast food consumed in a week.  Food security or lack of food security (wondering when the next meal will be available) was also considered.  In the study, a student’s health assets took into account BMI and even how many hours students watched TV.  Emotional stability (feelings of safety or lack of safety) was also carefully measured to determine a student’s health assets.   Obviously, the more health assets a student has, the better.

Two questions arise from these findings:

1. The first is physical.  If high academic achievement is positively correlated with health assets, why are many school cafeterias serving food void of even the tiniest amounts of nutrition?
2. The second is emotional.  If mental health is part of the health asset calculation, why do we use our school counselors as scheduling managers and testing administrators and when their skills reside in mental health counseling?

Physical/Food

According to the study, those with less health assets tend to be living in poverty.  Those living in poverty are usually defined in public education by the socioeconomic status proxy Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL).  To “help” these students the government along with the food industry, don’t get me started, has set up feeding programs in schools.

Have you ever seen the food provided for those on FRL?  I have and let me tell you, it’s nothing I would eat, EVER.  If you were to walk into many school cafeterias today, you would notice the abundance of nutrition-deprived food on the line.   I witnessed, myself, many mornings where students were fed a corndog type concoction consisting of a sausage link surrounded by a pancake and then syrup, which is NOT maple, to dip it in.

I am fairly certain that sausage pancake dog is not going to increase anyone’s health assets.  During lunch it’s nachos and chicken tenders.  Even more disturbing is I had to petition my school to offer salads for lunch.  When the cafeteria manager said it would be too expensive I had no choice but to use my administrative power and say, “I don’t care how much it costs, you WILL offer salads on this line.”

What borders the hallways in our schools is even more infuriating, especially if health is tied to achievement like this study suggests.  Vending machines filled with Pop Tarts, Cheetos, sugary sodas and energy drinks line our hallways and provide choices that infest our students’ bodies with sugar, salt and fat.  And yes it is their choice to buy these foods, but must we be pushers?

It’s all just to make or save money.  It is cheaper to provide students with packaged food because Cheetos have a longer shelf life than apples.  In addition, vending machines and snack lines are big money making ventures in the schoolhouse.  I have seen principals use the money from vending machines to fund projects in the building.  In fact, I know a principal who used the money he collected from vending machines to buy an expensive copy machine for the front office.  Great machine for making high quality copies, but the means by which that copy machine was acquired was not the best choice for our students.

If we are supposed to be here for the kids and help them achieve at their highest potential, why are we feeding them carnival food?

I can only speculate but perhaps it is designed that way.  I certainly do not see the affluent kids eating the free sausage dogs in the cafeteria in the morning.  Typically, those indulging in that type of cuisine are poor Latino and African American students.  Many of the white, affluent kids pack their lunches.  Not surprisingly the white, affluent kids do better on standardized tests.

Emotional/Counseling

Mental health is also part of one’s health assets.  It is no surprise state and district administration have exacerbated the mental health problem in schools by making our counselors serve as test administrators.  Counselors are unavailable to serve the students because the district and state has shifted a counselor’s responsibility from the wellbeing of students to the timely administration of standardized tests.

In addition to being test administrators, many school counselors are saturated with scheduling requests and responsibilities, they do not have the time necessary for counseling students on an authentic level.  Many meetings with students feeling overwhelmed or emotional unstable are rushed and even skipped because of all the other responsibilities administrators put on school counselors.  School counselors are not supposed to be scheduling classes all day and administering tests, the very source of much of the anxiety and mental meltdowns for students.  School counselors are supposed to be there to talk with students about how students are feeling.

Insanity

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again anticipating different results.  So the cycle goes for our less healthy kids:

• Bus pulls up and the poor kids head to the lunchroom for their free breakfast.
• They eat their sausage dogs and syrup.
• Teachers kill and drill them with content until they memorize what is on the state test.
• When the lunch bell rings, they go to the cafeteria where they eat chicken tenders and fries.
• They then go back to class with their bodies full of nutrition-deprived food.
• If they have emotional issues due to stress and lack of safety they are unable to meet with their counselors.
• They go home deflated and probably hungry again.
• Many will not eat until they can get the free breakfast in the morning.
• And in the morning, the bus pulls up again and the cycle repeats for the remainder of the school year.

Is it any wonder proficiency rates mirror FRL status?  We have students who live in poverty eating nutrition-deprived food in our cafeterias unable to speak to their counselors about their fears and anxiety.  It may cost a little more to feed these students better food and to get them the counseling they need and deserve.  But may I suggest forgoing the expensive copy machine and perhaps spending that money on what students need to sustain life?