Getting the balance right for healthy kids
Published 4:00 pm Saturday, January 19, 2008
If you’re looking for health risk, it’s right in front of you.
That seemed to be the view of School Board member Mike Foley at Thursday’s board meeting. While debate over the installation of synthetic turf at Bainbridge High School had to that point generally focused on the merits vs. risks of the rubberized surface itself, Foley argued that obesity and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle are a far more serious concerns than possible toxins in the turf, and that team sports are important for motivating kids to stay fit.
Foley noted a just-published story from USA Today on a decades-long Danish study that tracked some 277,000 youngsters as they grew up. Findings included: excess body weight in children dramatically increases the risk of heart disease in adulthood; childhood obesity can decrease life expectancy by two to five years; one-third of obese children have developing liver problems that can lead to hepatitis, cirrhosis or liver failure. How pervasive are such problems in our own nation? An estimated 25 million American youngsters – about one in three – are overweight or on the cusp, according to the literature. Foley suggested that Americans may be raising the first generation of children who won’t outlive their parents because of weight-related health problems.
To be sure, an artificial surface on the high school field is no panacea. But to the extent that it promotes year-round outdoor play on a field that’s currently out of commission all winter, it’s good in and of itself.
The real challenge is for educators and parents to keep the focus on healthy lifestyles of which athletic competition and general physical activity is just one component. Toward that end, we noted this week that State Rep. Christine Rolfes is among 19 co-sponsors of House Bill 2709, which would make it easier for school districts to bring local – that is, less processed and more nutritious – produce into student lunchrooms. Under current laws, districts purchase food commodities through regional cooperatives, but they’re bound by low-bid requirements that favor distant agrigiants that can undercut local growers. HB 2709 would give districts the latitude to establish “percentage price preference” of up to 25 percent, that is, to ignore lowball bidders and go with Northwest farms even if their wares come at a premium. The goal is to put better food onto student lunch trays while at the same time supporting local and regional growers. “I don’t know whether there are farms in Kitsap County that would provide the bulk that they need,” Rolfes told us this week. “But it at least gives school districts the flexibility to work with the farmers to see how it might work.”
Still at issue: where the extra money might come from to pay the premium for locally grown foods; it’s not like our school district is rolling in funds. Rolfes says that will be explored as the bill is vetted in committee, and that perhaps state funding would be available.
Healthy exercise, healthy diet – a good recipe for our youngsters. Let’s promote it.
***************
Correction
• The mural on the wall at the Bainbridge Island Aquatic Center is known as “Water Quilt,” by island artist Maggie Smith. It was misidentified in a Wednesday article about public art.
