Advocates of school nutrition standards use high-school chefs' competition to show that food can still taste good

The higher school-food standards required by the Child Nutrition Act expire this year, and Republicans are continuing their efforts to roll back some of them. Democrats and advocates of the standards used a student cooking event on Capitol Hill to generate support for the standards, apparently to counter arguments of some school nutrition directors that some of the healthier options are more difficult to prepare and serve.

In the final competition, the top nine high-school teams served their winning dishes to lawmakers. The dishes had to follow their cafeterias' budgets and the national standards: To win, students had to include products rich in whole grains, low in sodium and a half-cup of fruits and vegetables, Whitney Forman-Cook reports for Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter. She doesn't list any of the dishes, but they're listed with the winners on the "Cooking Up Change" website of the Healthy Schools Campaign.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., hosted the event. She said that she and Senate Agriculture Committee Chariman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who has vowed to roll back some of the standards, have been discussing the issue, and she would like to pass a bipartisan bill by Sept. 30, when the current law's authority ends. One standard Stabenow doesn't want to compromise on is the requirement for a half-cup of fruit and vegetables; Michigan is a big fruit and vegetable state.

Stabenow said the Department of Agriculture "is very willing to work with schools where there are issues" in meeting nutrition requirements. (Read more)

Pilot salad bar will determine whether other Jefferson Co. schools follow suit in bid to increase students' veggie and fruit intake

The Jefferson County Public School system is pilot-testing a salad bar at Atherton High School to entice students to eat more vegetables and fruits, a goal of the new federal nutrition standards, Allison Ross reports for The Courier-Journal.

Photo from TheProduceMom.com

"We're always looking for new ideas to increase participation or attract students to come through the serving line," Terina Edington, assistant director for nutrition services, told Ross.

Many of Kentucky's children are falling far short of the daily recommended four and a half cups or more of fruits and vegetables, a shortcoming that one study says will contribute to early heart disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2013 State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables found that only 50 percent of Kentucky adolescents reported eating fruit and 43 percent reported eating vegetables with a median intake of one time per day for both.

Salad bars were once common in Jefferson County schools, but concerns about portion control and contamination concerns caused them to "slowly disappear," Edington told Ross. Many schools across the country continue to "remain leery" of adding salad bars because of such health concerns, Ross writes.

This trial will help the district determine whether it will put salad bars in other schools. Cafeteria modifications for the salad bar at Atherton cost $400, Ross reports.

A push for schools to add more salad bars has been led by First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative, which co-sponsors a "Salad Bars 2 Schools" program that has donated more than 4,000 salad bars to schools, Ross reports. "A 2014 evaluation of that program found that 57 percent of participating schools saw an increase in student participation in school lunch, and 78 percent reported buying more fruits and vegetables."

The school's Facebook page said that the salad bar would have diced ham, turkey breast, fajita chicken strips, cucumbers, baby spinach, radishes and four types of dressings, with the lettuce and meat portions pre-measured, while the other ingredients will be self-serve.

Atherton High parent Lynn Greene told Ross that she is "thrilled my child has a healthy option," saying she hopes other schools will also get salad bars.

Study: American children's diets will cause early heart disease; Kentucky kids seem to be on the same track

Kentucky Health News

A study shows that American kids are eating themselves toward early heart disease.

The study, published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, looked at a nationally representative group of children and found that "American kids eat too much sugar and salt, they don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, and far too many are overweight," , Maggie Fox reports for NBC News. And of the 8,900 children aged 2 to 11 surveyed, "most were not meeting the goal on three out of four measures of healthy living."

"Our findings indicate that, in general, children start with pretty good blood pressure," Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who oversaw the study, told Fox. "But if they have a horrible diet, it will drive a worsening body mass index and cholesterol levels."

The research found that fewer than 1 percent of the children in the study had four or five of the main components of a healthy diet; only 3 percent of boys and 2 percent of girls ate enough whole grains daily; more than half of the children drank too much sugar-sweetened beverages; and fewer than 10 percent ate the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables. The study also found that 30 percent of the children surveyed were overweight or obese, Fox reports.

This poor diet could "put many on the road to heart disease," Fox writes.

And Kentucky's children, who rank eighth in the nation for child obesity, are likely walking down this road to poor health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2013 State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables found that only 50 percent of Kentucky adolescents reported eating fruit and 43 percent reported eating vegetables with a median intake of one time per day for both.

As for sugar-sweetened beverages, the 2013 Kentucky High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that in the seven days prior to the the survey: 33 percent of high school students drank a sugared soda one or more times a day; 25 percent drank a sugared soda two or more times per day; and 15 percent drank a sugared soda three or more times per day.

"It seems that children in the United States are losing their ideal cardiovascular health status," the researchers wrote, Fox reports. The study found about "40 percent of the kids already had poor to worrying cholesterol levels."

The main components of a healthy diet, according to the study, are: eating four and a half cups or more of fruits and vegetables each day; three servings of whole grains a day; two servings of fish a week; minimal amounts of sugar; and below 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day.

NBC has previously reported that many studies have found that children who have risk factors for heart disease show signs of clogged arteries that are typically found in middle-aged adults.

But another study found that that eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, low in saturated fats and low on fatty meat "dramatically cuts the risk of heart disease and stroke," Fox writes.