Alta student voices her opinion on nutrition as part of Governor's committee

Alta High School senior Jenna Harms has some great concerns about what youth are eating at her school as well as around the state.

Jenna is a member of the State of Iowa Youth Advisory Council where she has been appointed to the position of chair of the nutrition committee. This group works with the State of Iowa Team Nutrition and is also a part of the Healthy Kids for Iowa program. (That's a mouthful and a lot of committees that this young lady has become dedicated to.) By the way, she is the only student in Iowa to be a part of the Healthy Kids Act Stake Holders board; adults make up the remainder.

When she was a sophomore, she became a part of the Buena Vista County Promise Youth Council and enjoyed the challenges and topics that came up for discussion. She applied to be a part of the Governor's Youth Council, went through an interview process and was welcomed on the council along with high school students from around the state.

The Council convenes in Des Moines. She takes off time from school - completing her school work ahead of time - to attend.

Team Nutrition is an initiative of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to support the Child Nutrition Programs through training and technical assistance for foodservice, nutrition education for children and their caregivers, and school and community support for healthy eating and physical activity.

The goals of the committee are to integrate a behavior based, comprehensive plan for promoting the nutritional health of the nation's children. This plan involves schools, parents, and the community in efforts to continuously improve school meals; this involves having conversations with school cooks. Jenna will be setting up a time for those conversations though the cooks here have already made changes and offering more healthy choices.

The school has eliminated pop machines, and offers such beverages as 100 percent juice, milk and water.

In addition, Jenna is also part of the School Nutrition Team, along with Neil Marshall, Tyler Larson and Katie Garrison (one from each of the four high school grades.)

Team Nutrition uses three strategies to change behavior:

1. Training and Technical Assistance for Healthy School Meals The focus of the training and technical assistance is on:

* Planning and preparing healthy meals that appeal to ethnic and cultural taste preferences in all Child Nutrition Programs;

* Linking meals programs to other educational activities, such as learning in the classroom and developmental progress in child care;

* Providing nutrition expertise and awareness to the school or child care community; and

* Using sound business practices to assure the continued availability of healthy meals and the financial viability and accountability of school meal programs.

2. Nutrition Education

Through fun, interactive nutrition education children are encouraged to:

* Eat a variety of foods

* Eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains

* Eat lower fat foods more often

* Get your calcium-rich foods

* Be physically active

3. School and Community Support

School and community support for healthy eating and physical activity focuses on three behavior outcomes for school and community leaders:

* Adopting and implementing school policies that promote healthy eating and physical activity;

* Providing school resources adequate to achieve success; and

* Fostering school and community environments that support healthy eating and physical activity.

Broad support is needed to provide nutritious meals, nutrition education, and healthy school and community environments. Adults can provide this support and positive messages in a variety of ways, through their actions and decisions.

This spring, Jenna assisted in coordinating a nutrition symposium in Alta. She had to help find a venue for the event, help find a caterer, found someone to lead a physical activity break, and assisted in finding a speaker. About fifteen schools attended this event and which gave them the opportunity to apply for a mini-grant

Jenna and her school wellness committee attended this event and applied for a mini-grant for the school and received it. The dollars received will be used to provide nutrition education for the third grade classes at Alta and will include exercises they can take part in and showing them how to select healthy food choices while at home and school. The classes will begin this month with the Team Nutrition leading the way. This money also went to buying fruit and cheese from the FFA club at her school which was given to all the students.

Jenna also had the opportunity to attend a round table discussion with United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in Knoxville, Iowa this fall. At this event she was once again the voice of the students. Secretary Vilsack asked her about how students have been taking the changes in the food programs in schools and referred to her answers throughout the discussion.

Jenna has enjoyed learning about the nutrition- she has changed her own eating habits and even those of her family's - through all the discussions - but does not intend to pursue a career in nutrition. What she has found to be more interesting though are the discussions on laws relating to the nutrition issues. She would someday like to attend law school.

Something else that her involvement in these councils has given her is confidence and leadership skills.

"I used to be really shy," she said adding that the more meetings she attended, the more she enjoyed the discussions and voicing her opinions.

She recommends any student who wants to be a leader to become involved in any of these councils. She hopes after this year when she steps down, that someone from the Alta school will take her place.