There are going to be problems
if our kids eat foods layered
with fat, sugar, and salt
for lunch at school.
tions and drives our behavior as well as
the behavior of our kids, it has
profound implications—for school
lunch programs, for vending machines,
for when we eat, for how we use food,
and for how we educate. The best
thing that schools can do is to teach
kids about nutrition and help them
understand that fat, sugar, and salt—
although they taste good for the
moment—will only stimulate them to
come back for more. That if they use
food as a reward or for purposes other
than for nutrition and fuel, they’re
contributing to laying down that neural
circuitry. That if they use food to regulate mood, then they’re going to be
stuck in that cycle for the rest of
their lives.
Kids look at that huge plate of
food now and say, “That’s what I
want.” That’s a hard cycle to
break. And it’s having a
profound effect on their
health. In the past, adults
would get type 2 diabetes in
their 40s or 50s, then live for
two or three decades with the
disease, developing eye disease,
kidney disease, cardiovascular
disease, and other complications. But
kids are now getting type 2 diabetes—
patterns from the beginning, to find
foods that are rewarding as well as
healthy. If you continually expose children to fat, sugar, and salt, they will find
these foods to be their friends. They will
use them to feel good. If that’s the case,
it’s hard to break the habit. Yes, you can
retrain the brain, but you do it by laying
down new neural circuitry, new learning
on top of old.
How can schools help with laying
down this new learning?
Once we understand that the constant
availability of fat, sugar, and salt condi-
at 10 years old! What’s going to be the
effect of living, not for two or three
decades with the disease, but for four,
five, and six decades? That concerns
me as a pediatrician.
Limiting where we eat, when we eat,
and what we eat is vitally important
with kids. But we can’t just deprive our
kids or give them rules. If kids feel
deprived, it’s not going to work. You’ve
got to give them the tools so they can
understand what good nutrition is so
they will want to eat foods that will
sustain, satisfy, and nourish them.
There are going to be problems if
our kids eat foods layered with fat,
sugar, and salt for lunch at school, if
they use vending machines there, and
if stores around the school also sell
products layered with fat, sugar, and
salt.
We all got into this jam together. We
created this problem in the last four or
five decades—and it’s going to take all
of us to undo it. You can’t just do it at
home, you can’t just do it in the
schools—you have to do it together. EL
AUDIO
Listen to an extended version of this interview at www.ascd.org
/publications/educational_leadership/dec09/vol67/num04/Finding
_Our_Way_Back_to_Healthy_Eating@_A_Conversation_with
_David_A._Kessler.aspx#azzam_audio.
David A. Kessler,
M.D., is former
Commissioner of
the Food and Drug
Administration.
He is a pediatrician,
lawyer, and author.
Amy M. Azzam is
Senior Associate
Editor, Educational
Leadership, aazzam@ascd.org.
