https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_kass_want_to_teach_kids_well_feed_them_well#t-678370
Sam Kass is a former White House chef and food policymaker who
has various educators in his family. In his TED Talk, Mr. Kass speaks about the
relationship between nutrition and educational outcomes. He offers the physical
health, mental health, behavioral and educational benefits of students
receiving nutritious meals, specifically breakfast, at school. Mr. Kass
recognizes, as he demonstrates with a story of a “school chef” or “lunch lady,”
that many children do not get nutritious meals or even meals at all at home,
and that these kids are unable to focus on school and learning due to their
hunger. Mr. Kass cites what can be seen as alarming statistics regarding food
insecurity, hunger, and health issues related to nutrition in the U.S. He
suggests that schools should offer free, nutritional breakfast and lunch to all
students, as opposed to only low SES students, as this reduces stigma. Mr. Kass
supports this idea by showing improved educational outcomes in schools with
over 40% low income students that implemented a program Kass helped create
during his time at the White House where nutritious foods for breakfast and
lunch were served to all students for free. These outcomes include an
increase in math and reading scores by over 17.5%. Mr. Kass even shares a story
of a state-championship-winning football team from one of the poorest districts
in the country whose coach credited their win to the new nutritional foods
served at the school. Mr. Kass nears the end of his talk by stating, “If we
focus on the simple goal of properly nourishing ourselves, we could see a world
that is more stable and secure, we could dramatically improve our economic
productivity, we could transform our healthcare, and we could go a long way in
ensuring that the earth can provide for generations to come.”
I think Mr. Kass has a lot to offer in terms of the benefits
of nutrition on education. I would have liked for him to go into more detail
about the body’s functioning and why nutrition plays such a big role, but I
understand he may have been under time constraints. I agree with Mr. Kass on
the issue that nutritious, free meals should be offered to all students. I have
witnessed the stigma associated with receiving free or reduced lunch at school,
and I know the impact that it can have on students’ self-esteem. I had a friend
in high school who waited until all 400 or so students went through the lunch
line before she got her food to avoid other students seeing that she got her
lunch for free. She then would have to eat very quickly and sometimes not have
enough time to finish eating. In her case, the benefits of the free lunch were mitigated by the drawbacks.
Offering free meals to all students is a good intervention,
in my opinion. But as we have been discussing in class, it is more beneficial
to intervene sooner and, therefore, target prevention. As social workers, we
can support and advocate for universal free lunch and nutritious meal programs,
but doing so would be a smaller-scale fix to a large-scale problem. We know
that we need to address poverty before families become food insecure; We need
to address food insecurity before children are malnourished; We need to address
hunger before students’ educations are negatively impacted. While I feel the ideas
Mr. Kass offers for intervention are practical and beneficial, this issue has
many layers to be addressed.
I really appreciate Mr. Kass' whole child approach and completely support the need for children to be fed...and nutritious food is even better. The school where I have my field placement provides breakfast for all students...I'm glad they have the opportunity to eat, but am concerned about the prepackaged processed high sugar food they are given. There are studies supporting the need for breakfast and some of these studies go so far as to recommend what type of food is best for breakfast and improving cognitive function (oatmeal ranks pretty high). Just imagine how likely students would do better in school and have improved well-being if they consistently had regular meals....and enough sleep...and enough play time...and.... but, breakfast and lunch would be a great start!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this TED Talk and thought Sam Kass made some excellent points and loved his stories that he put with them! I agree with your opinion, Brittany that the issue is multifaceted and that as social workers, we should be trying to target the prevention side of the matter. And I also agree with you Karla, that nutritional food should be a standard that we are aiming to reach in the school. I do believe that it would make significant difference, along with getting it 2-3 times a day. Something else that I was thinking about as I was watching this, is the effect of kindness and care on students' well-being. Sam talked about Cheryl who made pasta for her students on Monday, because she knew they liked it and it would help make up for the fact that a lot of her kids had not eaten all weekend. That is a special person who puts that much consideration into her students' lunch. Assuming that there are others like Cheryl, I wonder if students know that their cafeteria chefs care about them, or that the chefs make other efforts to let students know that they care? As much as a smile, or asking them how they're doing and mean it? As a student, I was in a free/reduced breakfast and lunch program and I remember enjoying seeing the cafeteria staff and how they made me feel good, and special. At times, I would forget about being embarrassed that I was a "poor kid." A little compassion that compassion that is paired with getting a basic need met can go a long way.
ReplyDelete~Cara
This topic is very relatable to me as I was the person who had at one point free lunch and one point reduced lunch when I was in Elementary School. I actually didn't understand the stigma or the reason behind why my lunch was cheaper for me and that I only had to carry two quarters while everyone else paid a little over 2 bucks, but I think free lunch is a fantastic but very far intervention that should be introduced to all schools. I've become very passionate about eating healthy as I get older, but as young students, they don't really understand the nutrition they're getting in their quick and easy meals..walking tacos, pizza boats, fries, all of those nasty fried foods are just food to kids. They think it's tasty so they'll eat it. And on the topic of breakfast being served at school, this would've been very important for me had these programs existed when I was in school. My immigrant parents worked a nail salon job that started at 10 AM, so they weren't up at 6-7 AM feeding me and my brothers before getting on the bus. I remember how starved I felt while teachers always lectured about eating breakfast because it gets your brain juices flowing. It was so hard for me to make it through class when I knew lunch was hours away. With my personal experience, there's got to be other students out there who had felt the same way, clueless about why breakfast is really important for the body and helps it function through the day. I think breakfast at school would tackle that issue and really help students well-being in the school systems.
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