YST Healthy Eating Initiative
Mission Statement:
To promote life-long education in YST of healthy eating for mind and body.
The facts:
Ø More than two thirds of the American population is now overweight, obese or extremely obese.
Ø Our youth, ages 2-19 have an overweight-obese rate of just over 50%. And with this (and the sedentary lifestyle that accompanies most overweight and obese people) comes a myriad of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, and emotional issues such as depression.
Ø It is clear that we need to make some serious lifestyle changes. In this meeting, we can start to establish significant policy changes in our school life to improve the habits of our kinderlach.
Objectives/Aims:
ü To help children improve concentration, learning and energy levels.
ü To support parents and children make healthy enjoyable decisions around food.
ü To develop nutritional awareness i.e. ingredients in foods.
ü To ban the reward of food for good behavior and academic success.
Guidelines:
o Suggest healthier choices of drink include water, milk, unsweetened juice
o Provide a suggested snack list (I.e. pretzels, fruit, vegetables, non-hydrogenated oil snacks and crackers/aim to remove shehacol snacks)
o Recommend more movement opportunities for our children (during and after school).
o Implement new reward systems/classroom management for teachers
o Establish birthday party/siyum/GO regulation list for consumption (i.e. no chewing gum, taffy items, soda cans and cake products over 6oz provided).
Implementation Strategy:
- All parents will be offered the opportunity to attend a healthy eating information evening in which policy will be presented in written form.
- School staff will provide positive modeling and supportive attitudes to encourage healthy eating.
- A practical guide to healthy eating will be provided for everyone both as an attachment to the YST bulletin and via email.
Other program models:
v Public School Examples:
v Modern Orthodox Yeshiva Examples:
v Girls School and Boy School Yeshiva Examples:
§ Nursery School Suggestions
§ Middle School Suggestions
§ High School Suggestions