Healthy Eating Decisions program helps to reduce childhood obesity

Dave Pittman is convinced you can teach schoolchildren to make healthy choices at lunchtime. And he's got the research to prove it.

Pittman, a psychology professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, ran tests in two different elementary schools in his area. He was trying, in part, to convince the children to select white milk instead of sugary, flavored milk for their lunch. And then, with an array of menu selections, to pick the healthiest food for lunch. All this comes at a time when America is confronting an epidemic of childhood obesity.

"We measured the percent of students choosing the healthy menu items plus white milk for 9 days (baseline) before our program and 9 days after our program (incentive). Before our program, less than 3 percent of both schools were choosing the healthy lunch with white milk. After our program, over 40 percent of the students were choosing the healthy meal plus white milk each day," Pittman reported on his website, www.healthyeatingdecisions.com.

Pittman has been given a grant by two foundations in the Spartanburg area to broaden his Healthy Eating Decisions program from two schools to 40 elementary schools with 20,000 students in Spartanburg County.

The program calls for students to choose one of three entrees on the menu, multiple side items and either white or flavored milk. (Before this, students are shown a video on how to make healthy food choices.)
Each day, Pittman's program identifies the healthiest of the daily choices offered by the schools' food service. When they make healthy decisions, the students gain public recognition -- they ring a call bell in the cafeteria, acknowledging to their fellow students they made a healthy choice.

"The simple act of ringing a call bell provides a moment of attention that instills a sense of pride within the student for having made a healthy eating decision and reminds the other students that their school values daily healthy eating decisions," Pittman says.

"Childhood overweight and obesity prevalence is above 30 percent for elementary students in Spartanburg County," Pittman says. "We believe that our program has the potential to reduce childhood obesity by promoting healthier eating decisions during the regular elementary lunch service."

And Pittman is so confident of his program's effectiveness, he's put it on his website and made it available to any school system in the nation, at no charge. The new grant will allow Pittman to hire a pediatric dietician, with 20 years' experience, to offer an independent assessment of what constitutes healthy lunch choices at individual schools in Spartanburg County.
Eventually, Pittman plans to include a menu calculator that any school in the country could use to identify the healthiest choices on their lunch menus and allow those schools to implement a Healthy Eating Decisions program.