Staying Lean vs. the Freshman 15

Photo Credit: pitchburner.com

     In the last week and half, I have been in contact with the Assistant Director of University Dining Services at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Pamela Edwards.  I asked Pam if she could answer a couple of questions about how meals are handled at the University level, and our 15 minute conversation followed.  

     The first thing I wanted to know from Pam was about any regulation governing what the University can serve to students at meals, if there even were regulations.  "No regulations at all, none like the high school level," she told me.  "We can serve whatever, whenever."  Pamela then explained to me that they have the freedom to determine the style of the menu, what they're serving, and that students control the portion size.   There are a couple of things they have to take into consideration, though.  "Budget really mandates what we serve, as well as our diverse student population," Pam said.  After that, our conversation turned to the actual menu.  "There is a menu committee of five people, one from each residence hall," she began, "students can go to these meetings, where they decide the menu."  The menus for all five dining halls are different everyday, but the same menus overall.  "The menu is a pattern that is rotated around the dining halls, pretty much the same meals, but at different times."  Pam told me that about 11,000 meals are bought each day, which can range from someone going and getting orange juice to an actual meal.  "The food cost of a meal usually depends on the hall,"  Pam pointed out, "usually about $2.50 to $3.00."  

     I also wanted to know how healthy choices and good eating habits were communicated to students.  "Right now we are using the MyPlate campaign, and 'nutrition bytes'," Pam explained.  She went into detail about he 'nutrition bytes' which are similar to nutrition facts, in that they show calories, vitamins and nutrients, and sodium content, among other things.  The information they use for the nutrition bytes comes from the food they prepare, but are broken down into individual portions.  I asked Pam how students make good choices on what they eat without the supervision of his or her mom or dad.  "That's part of our [MyPlate] campaign, we are trying to provide information to students."  When I asked a recent Beatrice grad her thought on lunch at the University of Nebraska, she said, "It's awesome.  There are so many choices, and you can get whatever you want.  There are nutrition facts for everything, too."  There are several other ways that students can find help as well.  Students can talk with many of the people in the dining services at UNL if they have questions or need help with their diet.   

     Before I told Pam thank-you and goodbye, I had one final question.  Is the Freshman 15 a real thing, or is it just a myth?  Expecting a funny answer, Pam informed me that the freshman 15 is actually a real thing,  "I don't know if it's actually 15 pounds, but it definitely is a big issue for some students, if they don't recognize it."  She told me than many of the reasons that students may gain the 'freshman 15' is because they are in a new environment, wanting to try all the various foods.  "Some pay no attention to portion control," Pam said.  "Many students also eat outside of meal times, snacking while doing homework, or late night pizza parties.  Those really add up."  Stressing that diet isn't the only part of a healthy lifestyle, Pam told me that, "Exercise is key."  I thanked Pam for her time, and that was the end of our interview.  

     One thing that really stood out to me was that maybe meals are not the main source of our unhealthy eating habits, but instead the mindless snacking or late night eating that many of us are guilty of.  

-----Don't forget to send in your pictures of lunches across America for the project Lunch from Alabama to Wyoming, and to share The School Lunches Suck! Blog on Facebook with your friends and family!-----

Until next time,  stay full!

OPB: Operation Paper Bag.

To everyone who reads The School Lunches Suck! Blog, I have big news.  

We are joining forces with another movement against school lunches in New Jersey, called Operation Paper Bag. 

     Operation Paper Bag started out in Allentown High School, largely by a student named Jack Streppone.  Through a friend of a friend of a friend, I was put into contact with Jack.  Pretty quickly, he and I both realized that we didn't like the new changes to school lunch, and we also decided to do something about it.  

     In Jack's high school of about 1,300 students, there is something going on.  Students aren't buying lunch anymore.  They're bringing it.  Operation Paper Bag (OPB) was started by Jack and a few of his friends, and at the forefront of their movement is a petition, with nearly 900 signatures.  Everyday, Jack brings this petition to school, encouraging students to sign it, and lets them know about OPB.  The petition reads, "School lunch portions have decreased, while the prices, have increased! This is ridiculous! We, as students, need to stand up, be heard and do something about this!"  Jack said the reason for the petition and attention being brought to school lunches has a purpose,  "Ultimately our goal is to boycott meals at school, and hit the company that supplies our cafeteria with food and emyployees, Chartwells, where it hurts--financially."  

     Pretty quickly, the Allentown High School administration realized something was up, so the district superintendent set up a meeting between Jack and Chartwells before the full-fledged boycott was on.  Tomorrow, Thursday September 13th, Jack and the other students that started Operation Paper Bag are meeting with Chartwells representatives, employees, and a couple of school officials to talk about the school lunches.  There, Jack is going to present what he has found this year.  "Our lunch is $2.40," Jack went on,"and it's like finger food, but for raised prices!" 

     So over the coming weeks and months, I will be posting updates about Operation Paper Bag, and how things are going for Jack and his cause.  If you would like to follow OPB on twitter, their page is here, and their Facebook page is here.  This is really exciting news for The School Lunches Suck! Blog, so be sure keep posted for what's coming next!!

-----Don't forget to share The School Lunches Suck! Blog with your friends and family on Facebook with the 'share' button on the right.  Also, send in your pictures of school lunch for our challenge: Lunch from Alabama to Wyoming.  Pictures can be sent to teubks@gmail.com -----

Until next time, stay full!

Lunch from Alabama to Wyoming

     This week, someone who reads the blog told me they had a suggestion for a blog post.

O- Hey Travis, you know what you should do for your blog?

Me- What?

O- You should get a picture of a lunch from every state!! It would be cool to see what a lunch from every state looks like!

     We promptly discussed how cool it would be, and what all the different lunches would look like.  So to my readers, I ask you this:  

     If you are a student in any school in any state across America, send me a picture of your lunch!! Parents: if you have a student in school, get them to take a picture of their lunch, and then send it to me!! 
I will post the pictures I get weekly, and when I have every state, from Alabama to Wyoming, I'll write a summary of what I found!

If you send in a picture, please include:

• First name
• State
• Grade level
• What you ate
• (Optional) City

Send your pictures to teubks@gmail.com with the subject "Lunch in (your state)"     Encourage your friends, children, grandchildren, ANYONE you know in a different state to send one in!!   Hope to see 50 pictures really soon!!

Until next time, stay full!

Photo Credit: www.daily-quotes.net

Update...School Lunches Suck! Blog on TV!!

     Tomorrow, September the 11th, Channel 8 Eyewitness news from Lincoln, Nebraska will have a spot about The School Lunches Suck Blog on TV!! 
If you live in Nebraska, tune in at 6:00 pm to see what it's about!! If you don't live in Nebraska, or don't get Lincoln's ABC news on channel 8, I'l post a link so you can see it too!!

Here is a link to the spot that was on channel 8 today  http://www.klkntv.com/story/19517487/beatrice-high-seeing-drop-in-students-participating-in-school-lunch-program  Enjoy!

2nd Guest post...LUKAS! Friday, September 7th.

     Here is the first guest post from our second guest poster, Lukas!!  Lukas also attends school in a small rural Kansas community, and is quite the achieved distance runner!  He will probably be posting every two weeks or so, so be on the lookout for more!

     Hello Everyone! My name is Lukas; I attend a school much similar to Shane’s in aspect of size, and community. I live on a farm and understand the importance of healthy diets, which goes for animals and humans. But what is most special about me is my ability to run. I have loved running since grade school, and it has become a key part of my life. In the course of my high school career, I have brought home many titles and awards to my community. So from a true athlete’s perspective, we NEED more food! Like most pre-collegiate students I weigh under 200 lbs. Skin and bones, is probably the most accurate way to describe us. Now I am not saying that the food is gross, because I am by no means a picky eater, but the quantity is not rational at all. The statistics may say that the U.S. is overweight but where I come from we aren’t much more than bean stalks. This is a picture of the lunch that was served on Friday the 7th; I took every possible item of food that was possible.

• 1-Sloppy Joe
• 1-Bean Salsa with tortilla chips
• 1-leaf of Romaine 
• 2-1/2 slices of tomato
• 1 pear
• 1-cup of milk

     As you can see there is not a whole lot on my plate, the sloppy Joe was delicious, but that was the only meaty and filling part of the whole meal. Bean salsa? Come on, that is an appetizer. This lunch, however, was on Friday, and my cross country meet was on Thursday. The day after a race is known as a 'Recovery Day', which means you have to re-nourish all the vital elements your body lost during your race. The average runner (typical high school runner) needs more protein per pound of body weight than a professional body builder. There isn’t enough protein on this plate to recharge a 5^th grader after PE and recess. 

     We pay for these lunches, and I don’t believe that gives the government the right to restrict them. If the overweight people want to chow down on Honey Buns and Soda, who are we to judge them, Let alone stop them? It is their body and they can do to it as they please! We are adolescents, our metabolism is peaking. It’s possible to eat a little grub and still keep our low body fat. School lunches aren't the problem, and making them smaller will only encourage indulging in fatty foods after the bell rings. I hope to post again soon, but until then God Bless.

-Lukas

Thanks, Lukas!! 

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Thursday, September 6th, & POLL RESULTS!

     What's for lunch Thursday, September 6th?  Hot dog on a bun with french fries and baked beans.  Again, I opted for a different vegetable than french fries.

    Here is a breakdown of what I ate for lunch on Thursday, September 6.

• 1 hot dog on a white bun
• 1/2 cup grapes
• 1 grape juice box..............100 calories
• 1/2 pint 1% low-fat milk...100 calories
• 1/2 cup dark green salad
• 1/2 cup mixed veggies
• 1 packet ranch dressing/ketchup.....120 calories

     On Thursday the 6th, a hot dog on a bun with baked beans and french fries was served for lunch.  I love french fries more than you can know, but I like them fried to a golden crisp and am quite fond of the ones served at Runza.  The french fries at school, however, are a different story.  I'm not sure how these french fries are cooked, but I can tell you they are not fried to a golden crisp.  They are thick crinkle cut fries, but not like ones I enjoy at Runza.  When I asked three different students the first word they thought of when I told them to describe school french fries, their response was the same--soggy.  Personally, I would rather get a different vegetable and eat it than let the french fries go to waste.  Otherwise, this lunch wasn't too bad.  

     The results from The School Lunches Suck! Blog poll: How much control? are in!!  This week we asked the question, How much control should the Government have over school lunch?  With a total of  78 votes, we had two responses that both received about 33% of the vote.  The winner was 'None at all' with 30 votes, and 2nd place was 'Half as much' with 26.  

Keep it the same.	7 (8%)
Half as much.	26 (33%)
1/3 as much.	15 (19%)
None at all.	30 (38%)

     The School Lunches Suck! Blog has been receiving a lot of attention recently, as the story in the Beatrice Daily Sun that mentioned the blog was picked up by The Associated Press this Saturday!  Also, watch out tomorrow (Monday) for a quick update about where you can see the blog mentioned on TV!!

-----Don't forget to share The School Lunches Suck! Blog with your friends on Facebook, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or question below!  If you have a suggestion for a blog post idea, or any question at all, you can email me at teubks@gmail.com -----

Until next time, stay full!!

First guest post...SHANE! Friday, September 9th.

Today on The School Lunches Suck! Blog, we are featuring our first guest poster, Shane!! Shane and I share similar views when it comes to the school lunch program, so I asked him to do a guest post on the blog. Enjoy!!!

My name is Shane and I am a Junior at a small school in rural Northeast Kansas. As an avid reader of this blog, I love what Travis is trying to do and the message he is trying to get across. A problem I noticed though is that Travis, and Beatrice High School, are the only schools getting addressed. I figured this could lead some people to believe this problem is isolated to only his school. So I did the only thing I could think of doing, I contacted him about it. After talking it over, he asked me to write a guest blog on here to show that it is not only the large high schools with the new "healthy" lunches, it is all high schools. My high school has less than 100 people in it overall, and has the same complaints all other schools are having.
In our school, over 80% of students participate in sports of some sort throughout the year. In a school like this, getting enough to eat at lunch is even more important due to the amount of activity we are doing after school. Myself, being in Cross Country, can burn upwards of 1000 calories in a hard practice each day. Our school lunches are supplying around an average of 850 calories, as previously noted in Travis's blog. So where does my energy come from if lunch isn't even supplying enough calories for practice, let alone every day activities? It doesn't come. I have to carry it over from breakfast. By the time practice is done each day I am ready to go home and chow down on whatever I can find, which is normally unhealthy. So how much are the lunches really helping health if we go straight home to eat more unhealthy?
Our lunches have been similar all year to BHS's. The outlaw of salt at tables has started a "BYOS" (Bring Your Own Salt) trend among the students where they bring their own salt shakers from home to bring some taste in to the otherwise bland meals. You know there is a problem if high schoolers are getting that creative in trying to help lunches. Our time is already limited and our creativity could be much better used somewhere else, rather than having to worry about our hunger all day. I diagrammed today's (9/7) lunch for you guys to get a glimpse of what we are eating on a regular basis:

• 1 Sloppy Jo on whole wheat bread
• Sweet Potato Fries (unsalted)
• 1 cup Applesauce
• 1/2 cup Baked Beans
• 1 Pear
• 1 bag sunchips

Big thanks to Travis for letting me do this write up and HUGE shout out to what he's doing. He is putting a huge amount of work in to show that this really is a problem. I hope to be on here more often now to help show everybody how schools in other states and sizes are faring with school lunches. Travis has some big plans for this blog and I hope he keeps it up.This has been Shane posting on behalf of School Lunches Suck!


Thanks, Shane!!

-----A big thanks to the readers, too!! Today, The School Lunches Suck! Blog marked the pass of the 5,000th page view!! -----
-----The School Lunches Suck! Blog Poll: How much control? still has a day left for voting, so go vote!  And as always, don't forget to share The School Lunches Suck! Blog with your friends & family on Facebook with the handy share button on the right side of the page.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, stay full!