A new $350,000 grant from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund will help Muskegon Area Public School students grow and eat healthier foods.
Officials say, it’s a constant battle to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, and for many students in Muskegon County, the school lunch they receive in the cafeteria is the healthiest meal that boy or girl will eat that day.
Dan Gorman is the Creating Healthy Schools Muskegon County grant coordinator; he also serves as the and as food service director for Montague Area Public Schools and North Muskegon Public Schools.
“From a nutrition standpoint, we are probably better than any other venue from where kids get their meals normally; even home, for I would say 90 percent,” Gorman said. “But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t be better.”
Gorman says however, that some programs designed to teach students the value of healthy eating habits have fallen flat in the past. He says, that’s because it is not enough to simply put healthy foods on a plate in front of a student.
“They have to eat it,” Gorman said. “And to do that, they have to form a relationship with the food.”
One way to form that relationship with healthy foods, Gorman says are school gardens. As part of the grant Whitehall public schools has installed a hoop house to grow fruits and vegetables year round.
“If a student grows green peppers and red peppers in their school garden, when they see it in their cafeteria, they are going to eat it.”
Another method Gorman says, is putting students in leadership positions that promote healthy foods, as their peers are more likely to follow lead of their friends over an adult telling them to eat their vegetables.
