Did you know: Shreiner continues to make inroads educating children about the importance of establishing healthy eating habits?
Most of you are aware of the great work by Shreiner parent and nutrition educator Dr. Amelie Billon-Bancel. From November through December, Dr. Billon-Bancel donated her time, expertise, and materials and conducted a series of 5 nutrition classes for each of our 3rd through 8th grade classes. This was a program initiated last year by Dr. Billon-Bancel, and our students and faculty continue to benefit from this important education. We greatly appreciate all that this awareness adds to our Shreiner program.
Another component of Shreiner’s health and nutrition awareness efforts is provided by Shreiner Cafeteria manager Cindy Visentin. Cindy continues her part in educating our children about good nutrition through her leadership with the Shreiner Garden Club. This past summer and early fall, Shreiner students enjoyed tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, onions and other vegetables with their cafeteria meals that had been grown and harvested by students in the garden club. Opportunities are available to students to participate again this year through our after school enrichment programs. Participating students had fun and provided wonderful food for our cafeteria!
And speaking of our cafeteria, this past month we welcomed Shreiner Cafeteria Business Manager and nutrition expert, Karen Hatchell to our staff. Karen has revamped our Shreiner menu with even healthier choices for our children, and she enlists the children in interesting food projects and will continue this each month. The student project work is displayed in our cafeteria—lessons are fun and interesting, and children have the opportunity to proudly display what they’ve learned.
All of the above coincides nicely with the January 2010 edition of EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP. The focus of the majority of the articles in this particular edition is on “health and learning”. In the article, “Finding Our Way Back to Healthy Eating: A Conversation with David Kessler” by Amy Azzam, former commissioner of the FDA David Kessler is quoted as stating, “The greatest gift you can give someone is to lay down healthy eating patterns from the beginning, to find foods that are rewarding as well as healthy…Once we understand that the constant availability of fat, sugar, and salt conditions and drives our behavior as well as the behavior of our kids, it has profound implications—for our school lunch programs, for vending machines, for when we eat, for how we use food, and for how we educate” (pp.9-10).
Precisely…and we at Shreiner are working as a community to educate and celebrate healthy eating habits.
Something to chew on until next week!!
Sarah
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