Healthier, Low-Fat School Menus

More children are suffering from obesity in the U.S., and a national effort is underway to make the food in our schools healthier.

Medical Correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explained on The Early Show that schools across the U.S. are trying to improve the food offered to kids in cafeterias, and to educate the students about the importance of a balanced and nutritious diet.

It can be an uphill battle, Senay says, in a nation where junk food is offered at every turn. But there is progress, as she found out at a high school in New York State that's setting a good example.

At Walter Panas High School in Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., food service manager Jo-Anne Ricapito has designed a menu to replace junk food with health food.

"We've made a lot of changes to move kids toward healthier food and we've given them new selections of healthier foods," Ricapito said.

The food at the school is baked instead of fried, and unhealthy items have been weeded out of vending machines.

"We no longer sell any regular chips at all," Ricapito said. "All our chips in our vending machines are baked. We have reduced fat chips. We have a refrigerated vending machine in our high school, which vends sandwiches, fresh fruits, yogurt parfaits."

The school's strategy is to make a healthy choice a happy choice for the students.

"Today, we'll be testing fresh fruit smoothies," Ricapito demonstrated. "We always offer [the students] a free sample. It's important because no one wants to buy something when they don't know what it tastes like."

Some students are eager to help themselves.

"It's about learning a healthy lifestyle," said Meredith Manning, a student. "If you're picking healthy choices in the cafeteria then you can bring that kind of thing home."

"It's really important for your body and as you're growing up," another student, Rimma Khait, agreed. "You need all the essential vitamins and everything."

Others at the school are less motivated to try the healthy meals.

"What's healthy tends to not taste as good," student Andrew Hoek responded.

Another strategy the school has implemented is to make unhealthy choices a little harder to make.

"Students can still get fries, but it has to be their choice," said Walter Panas High School Principal Susan Strauss. "They have to go to the snack bar to purchase them separately. We're not going to help them make the poor choice. They're going to have to do that on their own."

But where there's a will, there's a way.

"I think I could eat healthier," student Terrell Brannigan laughed. "I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm a kid, I'm gonna eat what I got there, it doesn't hurt me yet."

French fries and ice cream are still offered at the school to prevent a popular uprising among the students. But the effort goes beyond the cafeteria.

Health and nutrition is taught as part of the curriculum. The school is planning to further incorporate fitness into the choices available to kids this year by transforming weight rooms into more of a health club-style atmosphere to encourage kids to start working out.

School districts are also planning to start labeling the foods offered with nutritional content to further raise the kids' awareness of the choices they are making.