Children's Health

One Town Gets Children to Live a Healthy Lifestyle

Try This at Home

Make your house a healthy-snack zone. "Talk with your kids about why it's important to eat mostly healthy food and save sweets and fatty food for treats, then set limits together," Economos advises. Here's how:

• Don't demonize dessert: "It's part of the variety you should have in your diet," says Mary Joan McLarney, Somerville's public schools food-service director. "But we keep portion sizes for sweets small and only offer them once a week." Try reducing everyone's serving sizes at home — and endorse the idea by being visibly satisfied with your own helping. By doing so, you'll help equip your kids to make healthier choices even when you're not there.
• Prep healthy grab-and-go foods: Place them strategically in the fridge and cabinets for supereasy munching options. A few Somerville-tested ideas: low-fat yogurt; veggies with a little low-fat salad dressing; applesauce; a handful of whole wheat pretzels, sunflower seeds, and baby carrots; even easy-to-prepare low-fat turkey or taco roll-ups, made with low-fat cheese.
• Stop stocking sugary drinks: A single can or bottle of soda, sweetened tea, or fruit punch can pack 200 to 300 calories. Make water, herbal unsweetened iced tea, and fat-free or 1 percent milk your household's default drinks. You'll cut hundreds of useless calories out of your child's day almost effortlessly.
• Know when to bend the rules: Surprisingly, kids can still buy chocolate milk at lunch in Somerville's schools. "Many children don't get the three servings of dairy products they need each day during these crucial bone-building years," says McLarney. At 150 calories, an eight-ounce carton of chocolate milk has about 40 more calories than plain low-fat. She judged the compromise worthwhile — and you might, too, especially if you stick with one serving a day and cut back on other treats.

Send fruit or favors for school fetes: Take a stand against high-calorie party fare by providing grapes or nonfood treats like colored pencils, fun erasers, or cartoon-character stickers. The kids will adjust: Most Somerville students aren't even aware that their party fun food is unusually healthy.

Step Two: Make Healthy Food Its Own Reward

The mouthwatering aroma of tomato sauce filled the kitchen at the West Somerville Neighborhood School one morning last spring as the staff prepared for lunch. Cafeteria employee Linda Russell chopped mountains of fresh green peppers, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers for salad. Ripe apples and oranges were heaped next to the cafeteria line. When the lunch bell rang, students loaded their trays with salad, fruit, milk, and low-fat pizza or turkey sandwiches on whole wheat bread — without a word of complaint.

Those healthy lunches had a rocky start, though. In 2003, when the district halted sales of the chips, cookies, fruit punch, and sports drinks that were popular with students, snack revenues plummeted by about 50 percent, McLarney admits. "If you were a kid with $1.80 in your pocket, would you buy a Powerade and chips or a sandwich and a salad?" she asks rhetorically. "But sales are better than ever now — with an even higher percentage of kids buying food from the cafeteria."

The school district's secret to finding healthy foods kids love is simple: Ask them. Students taste-tested dozens of recipes. When steamed broccoli got a universal thumbs-down, the food-services team rolled out new variations. "We now serve lightly steamed broccoli with lemon zest, garlic, and a little olive oil and Parmesan cheese," McLarney says. "We wanted to create a buzz about vegetables." The kids aren't shy about praising what whets their appetites, even when it surprises them. At a recent taste test, Samantha Fitzgerald, now a third grader at the West Somerville Neighborhood School, never expected to like the bean, cheese, and broccoli wrap sandwich: "But it was so good, I ate seven pieces!"