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Learning what kids need to be healthy, straight from the source
Learning what kids need to be healthy, straight from the source
Though she holds a masters' degree in holistic nutrition, ran the country's only organic cooking school for seven years and is a regular speaker at The Clinton Foundation in Harlem, New York, Patty James is still learning a thing or two about what kids need to be healthy from her Shine The Light on America's Kids interview project. Traveling the country since January, James is touring one state a week, interviewing children with 25 questions to discover their true health habits. The videotaped interviews will then be analyzed by a university, with the results used to develop a program and a health center (or many health centers) where families will find the resources they need for life-long health -- cooking classes, nutritional and disease-prevention information. Meal Ticket spoke with James as she drove toward Drums, PA for school interviews. She gave us a look at the current state of Shine The Light five months in. Read the Q&A after the jump. Meal Ticket: What kinds of questions are you asking children on your tour? Patty James: We ask them, 'Are you healthy? Is your family healthy?' Some of the questions are very revealing -- When we ask 'What vegetables did you eat yesterday?' They often answer, 'Um, lettuce on my sandwich?" What I've been surprised to learn is what they're NOT eating -- vegetables and dietary fiber. MT: How much dietary fiber does a person need? PJ: You're supposed to be eating 30-35 grams of dietary fiber a day, and the average American is only eating 10-14 grams. These kids, they are just not eating vegetables. It's actually worse than I thought. Vegetables provide not just fiber but phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals. MT: What other answers have really surprised you? PJ: There's one question that every kid has answered 'yes' to, except one single child, and that is 'Do you think P.E. [physical education] should be mandatory? And every child except one said yes. They know they have to exercise to be healthy, and all of them, except this one kid, know they won't do it unless they are forced! Another shocking one is a question the kids answer 'no' to -- 'Do you think there is a connection between the earth's health and your health?' More than half of them say no, no connection. They don't know where their food comes from. It's a real disconnect, and lies at the heart of the obesity problem. You cannot solve it until you get to the source -- where the food comes from, what are you eating. MT: Do you think public policy, like corn subsidies, play a role in the obesity epidemic? PJ: Yes. A definite yes. When you look at childhood obesity, you see it really began in the 1980s and goes right back to sugar. Fructose, which is much cheaper than sugar, is metabolized like fat, and it wasn't common in foods until the 1980s. But the cheap filler stuff is just easier for people to hand to their kids. There is a distinct lack of vegetables, dietary fiber, whole fruits in these kids' diets... they are eating food that is just junk. MT: Many people say, 'My kids won't eat that,' about healthy foods, and vegetables particularly. How do you get kids to eat and enjoy what is good for them? PJ: In my cooking school, I'd be teaching kids to make quinoa pilaf or something like that, and the parents would say, 'Oh they will never eat that.' But if you make them part of the process, and give them ownership of it, they will want to eat it. Kids don't want to be unhealthy or overweight! But we have to get back to home cooking, to eating around the table. Kids who eat at a table get higher grades, are less likely to use drugs and alcohol and are more likely to go to college. We have too much cheap filler food and not enough good information.
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