School Beat: Salad DaysDana Woldowbyline‚ Sep. 20‚ 2007Another day, another depressing study about kids’ health – this time it’s Newsweek reporting that a projection by the Center for Disease Control indicates that nearly half of all African American and Latino children born in the US in the year 2000 will become diabetic at some point in their lives. By now everyone knows that today’s youth are facing an obesity crisis that threatens to make their generation the first in modern history to have a shorter life span than their parents’; less commonly discussed is how much harder poor communities of color are hit by this crisis. Five years ago, the San Francisco Unified School District took action, unanimously passing a resolution to get soda and junk food out of the schools and establishing a committee to improve school food. Although much progress has been made, including the removal of junk food from cafeterias and vending machines, and upgrading the quality of the hot lunches with fresh fruit and whole grain breads, there is a huge barrier to further improvements, and I bet you can guess what it is. (If you guessed “money”, you get an A+.) |