LAZAR WELLNESS COMMITTEE "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." - Alice Walker "Unless someone like you cares.

LAZAR WELLNESS COMMITTEE

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." 

     - Alice Walker

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

- Dr. Seuss

LAZAR WELLNESS COMMITTEE

Our MissionWork with the Lazar community to develop, implement, and create a wellness program that offers a vision and framework for providing healthy meals, as well as teaching about nutrition and the relationships between food, health, culture, and the environment.

LAZAR WELLNESS COMMITTEE

Who we are: – Administrators– Staff– Parents– Food service personnel – Students

What we do: the next few slides will document how wellness is integrated into curriculum at Lazar

Food Science

Life Skills Class allows the student hands-on experience of preparing meals made with whole food ingredients.

Health and Physical Education

Learn about nutrient dense food and the importance of it during adolescence.

■ Food label analysis project -students learn to read labels and identify healthy/unhealthy food choices.

■ Menu project – students create a ideal and healthy one day menu for their caloric needs based on their age, activity level and gender.

Media Center

Providing the Lazar Community with resources to further their understanding about our relationship with food and sustainable life choices.

Life Science

Providing students a hands-on approach to growing food from seed to table

Wellness permeates:

Fitness Club-offered twice a week to expose students to weightlifting, agility drills, and overall fitness training that can be used at home

Language Arts- Determine causes of obesity in the United

States and develop come up with solutions

- collecting recipes to create a healthy cook book - discuss carbon footprint of foods

Physical Science – measurement of sugar in commonly consumed drinks

Why is this important? ►

It’s a Public Health Issue

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, poor diet and physical inactivity are responsible for as many premature deaths as is tobacco. Obesity increases the risk of diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, osteoporosis, and many cancers.

A boy born in the U.S. in 2000 had a one in three chance of being diagnosed with diabetes by the age of 50 (closer to two in five for African American or Hispanic boys).

One in three children (31.7 percent) ages 2–19 is overweight or obese. Obesity among young people tripled between1980 and 2008.

27% Americans aged 17–24 are too overweight to be accepted for military service

Academic Success

Well-nourished students are better students, while poorly nourished students perform less well academically and score lower on standardized tests.

http://www.actionforhealthykids.org/resources/research-andreports/ the-learning-connection-the-value-of-improvingnutrition-and-physical-activity-in-our-schools.html, p. 13. Accessed September 23, 2010.

Academic Success

Optimal cognitive function requires essential vitamins, minerals, fats, and proteins.

Iron deficiency has been linked to shortened attention span, irritability, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating.

Integrate Nutrition

“You need to connect health, through nutrition education, to the whole curriculum. It means making school meals part of the nutrition education program.”– Marilyn Briggs, co-director, UC Davis Center for Nutrition in

Schools

Ideas

Whole food menu items Nutritional Labeling and Ingredient List on food served Limits to Sodium, sugar and fats Jersey Fresh produce No artificial sweeteners, trans-fats, or MSG in any food Hormone free milk Improved quality of meats Integrated curriculum-Only 20% of students see a connection

between what is taught in health, science, and nutrition science class and what is served in the cafeteria.

Do school meals model what students should eat for optimal health over a lifetime?

Benefits to fresh foods

“With fresh food, you’re not paying the processor’s labor costs, and you’re saving on

shipping and packaging....Then you save a second time by not

having to dispose of all that packaging.” - Marc Zammit, the Compass Group

Higher participation rates in school lunch purchasesHealthier StudentsBetter behavior and academic performance

What we are up against?

$10 Billion ~ Amount spent yearly advertising food and beverages that are marketed to children

7,600 ~ the number of television food advertisements the average child aged 8-12 watches every year

Food for Thought

“We expect them to know math, science and history, but they need to learn how to eat, too. I wanted to teach them, not just feed them.”

-Patrick Sandoval, an ARAMARK chef at the Pflugerville Independent School District near Austin, Texas

Ready to make a Change?

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

-Margaret Mead

**Thank you for attending our Wellness Meeting!!