[MrsJim]

This was in today's San Francisco Chronicle and I thought it was definitely worth sharing...it's great to see the schools taking a stand and targeting the war on obesity where it so often starts - in childhood eating habits.

In Berkeley, fine dining starts early - Pilot program serves gourmet breakfasts in elementary school


Meriem Benrekia, a third-grader, checks out potato and onion focaccia boxed in the program to fight obesity and hunger. Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn

Note the following quotes:

Fourth-grader Jovanni Cardenas maneuvered a red Radio Flyer wagon, laden with carmelized onion and fingerling potato focaccia, down the hall of LeConte Elementary in Berkeley.

He has the vaunted title of "snack passer," helping deliver free, healthful breakfasts to the desks of each of the school's 354 students. It is the latest such effort in a school district that is a national leader in the fight against childhood obesity and hunger.

Because the district is in Berkeley, the food that began rolling out at LeConte this week has to measure up to some of the toughest school food guidelines in the nation: no hydrogenated oils, no dyes or preservatives, no refined sugars, no bovine growth hormones and absolutely no genetically altered "Frankenfood."

"I've never seen this stuff before, and when I look at it, it looks kinda nasty," Tommy Rodriguez, 10, said Wednesday morning as he stared at a Bosc pear and the square of focaccia. "But then I try it, and it's pretty good."

The system has a few kinks. Some kids eat at home and decline the meal, the kindergartners make a mess that takes a long time to clean up, and some of the offerings, like onions in the morning, are a little too "Chez Panissey" for kids, district spokesman Mark Coplan said.

But logistics are fixable, Candito said. The real problems, she said, are hungry or overweight children who are distracted from learning by health problems.

A study this week showed that California's obesity bill is $21.7 billion a year thanks to the resulting medical care, workers' compensation and lost workplace productivity, Candito said.

"It's taken so many years to get into this childhood obesity mess, it's going to take years to unravel it," she said.

Researchers at Children's Hospital Oakland and UC Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health are going to study the Berkeley red-wagon program's effect on student health. If the results are positive, Candito said she hopes to use the information to lobby lawmakers to put more money into overhauling school food.