|
COLUMN |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
|
CONTACT: Michael
J. Herzing |
State Rep. James E.
Casorio, Jr. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dec. 12, 2006
‘Healthy Farms and Healthy Schools’ will lead to healthy children
By state Rep. James E. Casorio, Jr.
In November, I voted for legislation that creates a new state grant program that will allow school districts such as Jeannette to help their students eat healthier while supporting Pennsylvania’s agriculture industry.
The program, to be known as Healthy Farms and Healthy Schools, is aimed at increasing students’ knowledge about agriculture and encouraging healthy eating habits among young people, while at the same time boosting local produce growers and the state’s agriculture industry. It features a matching grant program of up to $15,000 per year for schools to support nutrition and agriculture education in kindergarten classes, with priority going to school districts where a high proportion of children are receiving free or reduced-cost meals.
The program is designed to address two very important concerns that we face here in Pennsylvania. The first is a lack of healthy eating habits, especially among children. We want more children to understand the importance of choosing healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables instead of unhealthy snacks. School is a great place to inform them about healthy foods and the benefits of eating well in an effort to combat the endless TV commercials they see for fast food and unhealthy snacks.
Second, we need to increase the level of general agricultural literacy among our young people – their understanding of where our food comes from and just how important agriculture is to our state’s economy and our personal health. Again, school is the perfect place to introduce these concepts.
It is my hope, and the hope of others who supported and helped to create this grant program, that Healthy Farms and Healthy Schools will begin to reduce the number of children in Pennsylvania who are overweight or obese, a number that has grown rapidly in recent years. We are currently facing a near epidemic of overweight children. We need to do something if we want to reduce the number of these children who encounter significant health problems in their young years and as adults. Creating healthy habits among children will reduce the health problems they will face as adults, and help to stem the rising health-care costs that all of us are facing as a result.
In addition to delivering education about healthy foods and healthy diets, the grant program will also include a component to help school districts make locally grown produce a part of their school lunch menu. This will improve both the dietary health of our children and the economic health of our farmers and local produce growers, benefiting two very important segments of Pennsylvania’s population.
Healthy Farms and Healthy Schools represents a creative and effective new way to get good food grown in Pennsylvania into our schools, and to get good eating and other healthy habits ingrained in our children.
###mjh/2006/agh
l:\print\releases\healthyfoodsschools.056