Last May, when AARP and best-selling Minneapolis-based author Dan Buettner teamed up to adopt the southern Minnesota city of Albert Lea and unleashed a wellness makeover on the city, they wanted to engage the entire town of 18,356 in the plan. That meant making changes to the town’s landscape (increased funding for more sidewalks), social life (encouraging restaurants to create healthier menu options), and work places (creating walking clubs over the lunch hour).
All those changes proved great for the city’s adult residents, who wholeheartedly embraced the project — “Albert Lea has gone well beyond my wildest dreams,” says Buettner, whose book Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who Lived the Longest was the inspiration for the makeover — but what about Albert Lea’s younger residents?
All-school audit
“About 30 percent of kids in this country are overweight, and 30 percent of that number are obese,” says childhood obesity expert Leslie Lytle, a University of Minnesota professor of epidemiology and community health. “Albert Lea is no different; this is a national epidemic that reaches all parts of the country.” As co-director of the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project Lytle made it her job to focus on improving the health of one of the town’s greatest tools in fighting childhood obesity: its schools.
Lytle, who has been auditing schools for more than 20 years, headed to the city’s four elementary schools, the middle school, the high school, and the alternative school to assess the district’s wellness policy, collect information from principals, and observe the environment at each location. Lytle then presented the information to the school district to help them consider changes. “I thought Albert Lea’s schools were doing better than most, but there were still things they could do to improve,” says Lytle.
Many of the suggestions from Lytle’s audit are concepts that have been touted nationally: limit vending machine access (and stock such machines with healthier options), curb a la carte sales in the high school cafeteria, and encourage walking or biking as a means to get to school.
At the elementary level, however, Lytle said two particular issues stood out: One was the fact that all four elementary schools permitted students to bring in (or have parents bring in) food from fast food restaurants for lunch, and the other was that food is often used as an incentive in the classroom — a student who achieves a reading goal might receive a Snickers bar, for example. “It wasn’t a surprise to find these issues, but to have every principal say, ‘We do this’ jumped out as a place where we could make an impact,” explains Lytle.
Changing habits
With the entire community involved in the Blue Zones project, Lytle’s report to the school board had plenty of momentum behind it. “We knew we had some areas that we could tighten up in our wellness policy, and we had the umbrella of the Blue Zones to help us do that,” says Corrine Tims, principal of Hawthorne Elementary in Albert Lea. Lytle’s statistics about childhood obesity and the increase in type II diabetes hit home for the district, making adopting new practices an easy decision.
That means students and parents saw noticeable changes at the elementary level — beginning with food in the classroom — when the school year began last month. Teachers have traded in candy and food coupons as the rewards of choice and instead are offering 10 minutes of extra recess or special privileges in the classroom. “We don’t want to stop rewarding students, we just needed to change the system so it’s not food anymore,” explains Tims. The elementary schools also sent home a list of healthy snacks for parents to follow when it’s their turn to supply the classroom’s daily snack break. “We’re trying to avoid getting junk food like cookies from coming in, so we made a list with healthier choices like whole-wheat crackers,” says Tims.
Similarly, birthdays are going to be celebrated once a month with a classroom-supplied popcorn party instead of individual students bringing in treats throughout the year. Tims says the birthday policy not only limits sweet treats but also helps parents in a tough economy. “We’re taking the burden off parents to come up with a treat for the whole classroom when money is tight,” she explains. And parents who want to have lunch with their child will have to think twice about bringing in a Happy Meal to the cafeteria: Tims and her fellow elementary principals are happy to have parents visit for lunch, but only if they check fast food at the door. “We haven’t had to walk that walk yet since no one has tried to bring in that kind of outside food, and it will be a tough one for the office, but we plan on stopping food like that from coming in,” says Tims.
Lytle, who has been pleased with the aggressive actions of the Albert Lea schools, likens the changes to that of the shift in attitudes regarding schools and smoking during her childhood. “When I was in school we all knew which teachers smoked,” says Lytle. “Somewhere along the line we decided that our schools should be smoke-free and that teachers should model that behavior — knowing your favorite teacher smokes is a negative influence on children. We’re on a similar trajectory now with healthy food and activity, but it’s tougher; you can choose not to smoke, but you can’t choose not to eat.”
Monica Wright is assistant editor of Minnesota Parent.
