Alert: "America is the only country in the world where the poor people are fat."

It's a fact: Lower-income adults tend to have sketchy diets and be overweight. But in kids, the percentage with poor diets isn't affected by income, according to a February 2005 study by the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. Overall, 16 percent of children aged 5-17 from both lower-income and more affluent homes don't get their recommended nutrients.

However, there's some good news buried in here. While the parents of poor families are more likely to have non-nutritious, fattening diets, their kids--so far--are holding their own.

The reason, experts suspect, is that poorer kids eat in the same public school cafeterias as other children. If the key factor here is school breakfast and lunch programs, then improving America's 120,000 elementary- and middle-school cafeterias becomes more urgent than ever. But how, in these budget-slashing times? The answer appears to be relatively simple:

Schedule recess before lunch, and give kids at least 30 minutes to eat. That's the conclusion of two little-known studies by the School Nutrition Association (SNA), an Alexandria, VA-based nonprofit. When recess comes before lunch, students eat more food and throw out less, reports the fall 2004 issue of SNA's The Journal of Child Nutrition & Management. The researchers found that the amount of discarded food dropped from 40 percent to 27 percent when recess came first, and from 43 percent to 27 percent when lunchtime was upped to 30 minutes from 20.

"Lunch is the first time of the day many kids get any freedom, and they're so eager to go out that they rush through eating," says Antonia Demas, PhD, president of the Food Studies Institute, a nonprofit organization whose vegan "healthy food" curriculum has been offered in 450 schools in more than 25 states. "If they have recess first and are given more time, they eat more food." The suspicion also is that if they had heartier appetites, revved up by recess, and were served salads and other healthful items, they'd eat and enjoy them. Then burgers, fries and other greasy, less nutritious foods could be phased out. "They'd start the afternoon ready to learn," Demas says. "This would require no money--only the recognition that what children eat really does matter."

You might say it's elementary.

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THE FOOD STUDIES INSTITUTE

60 CAYUGA STREET TRUMANSBURG, NY 14886

607.387.6884

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FOODSTUDIES.ORG

SCHOOL NUTRITION ASSOCIATION

700 S. WASHINGTON STREET SUITE 300 ALEXANDRIA, VA 22314

703.739.3900

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SCHOOLNUTRITION.ORG

phys ed

FEWER THAN 10 PERCENT OF US PUBLIC SCHOOLS OFFER IT DAILY

--Source: Centers for Disease Cobtrol and Prevention

Alan Pell Crawford is a former congressional press secretary and US Senate speechwriter.

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