DC students chnage habits- one fruit, veggie at a time

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/05/AR2010050502171.html
D.C. students change habits -- one fruit, veggie at a time
Ten-year-old Octavia Coleman of Southeast Washington has changed her eating ways.
After learning how much sugar is in everyday drinks (a Snapple ranks right up there with sodas) and how much salt is in her favorite potato chips, she could no longer look at those corner store snacks without feeling guilty.
"I've been exercising and learning how to live a healthy lifestyle," Octavia said. "I can't eat those chips anymore. They're my favorite, but they have too much salt, and that's not good for your body."
The fourth-grader at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Southeast helped serve fresh fruit and vegetables recently during an expo that brought to a close the school's Road to a Healthy Body program, which was held every Tuesday since January to combat childhood obesity.
Coordinated by Niama Sandy, an after-care teacher at the school, the initiative was funded with a $500 grant from Unison Health Plan of the Capital Area as part of UnitedHealth Group and Youth Service America's UnitedHealth Heroes grant program.
Sessions with a personal trainer and dietitian helped students think about the way they interact with food and how to exercise even if they don't have equipment or a ball, Sandy said. The students weighed in by helping to pick mangoes, cauliflower and other snacks that they sampled at the end of the school day.
"Basically, my hope is to change the culture at this school so that they talk about health daily. I want them to begin to expect their healthy snack to the point that if they don't get it, they're like, 'Hey, what happened to our snack today?' " Sandy said.
She also tested the students' palates with unfamiliar flavors, such as coconut water.
"There was a very polarized reaction: They either hated it, or they loved it," Sandy said. "I also prepared a mango chow, which is a Caribbean dish created with fresh mango and pineapple mixed together with a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper. They either really loved or really hated that, too."
Octavia's healthful food conversion is what Whitney Bateson thinks can happen if children are given healthful choices.
Bateson, a resident dietitian at the school, manned one of four nutrition education stations at the expo. She said she is confident that elementary-age students are capable of understanding the dietary benefits of, say, flaxseed.
"When you see the look on their faces when they taste something, you know they're surprised that they like what they've just tasted. I try to give out handouts in hopes that they find their way home," Bateson said. "In the beginning, we just did some basic fruits and veggies. Then we moved to whole-grain tortillas and hummus. And in our last session, we had smoothies. Of course they loved that."
The school is also a beneficiary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which provides federal funding for District schools to serve fresh produce to students daily after lunch and has been in place since the beginning of the semester.
"The program really helps students get exposed to new foods. It was difficult getting them to warm up to some of the vegetables," Bateson said as students polished off three fruit platters while the first vegetable platter sat hardly touched.
"I kept trying what they tell you in nutrition school, that it takes 10 to 20 times for a person to taste something before they know if they like it or not," she said. "I gave them vegetables, like sugar snap peas, and told them that it's good that they tried it and it's okay if they didn't like it maybe they will the next time."