Dole Food Company and Hy-Vee Food Stores have donated five salad bars to schools in the central Iowa area at the United Community School in Boone.
The salad bars were donated as part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative, which has donated over 1,440 salad bars serving more than 720,000 children across the country.
Dole said the event underscored the practical action that schools can take to combat the growing obesity epidemic in the US such as providing healthy lunch options.
“As schools work diligently to comply with the USDA’s new nutrition standards for school lunches, salad bars serve as a reasonably priced, attractive option to increase our students’ consumption of fruits and vegetables,” the group explained.
Dole said that research has indicated that the widespread availability and relatively low cost of junk food in schools has contributed significantly to the rise in obesity in the US.
“Research has shown that it can take at least 10 exposures to a new food before it is accepted by children,” pointed out Marty Ordman, Dole’s vice-president of marketing and corporate communications.
“Salad bars can increase exposure to new fruits and vegetables and create a sense of ownership for students through the selection process. And from what we are seeing, students are trying – and liking – almost everything that is being offered to them.”
Jason Sheridan, assistant vice-president of produce operations for Hy-Vee added that education and experience go hand-in-hand in the development of good eating habits.
“When children have the chance to sample fresh fruits and vegetables at school, they’re more likely to ask for them at home,” he noted.
“This is a wonderful example of how schools and businesses can work together to create healthier communities.”
Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools – a grassroots public health initiative working in support of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative –was created in November 2010.
The partners of the initiative, including Dole, share a vision to significantly increase the number of salad bars in schools across the country until every child has the choice of healthy fruits and vegetables every day at school.
This initiative goes hand in hand with the new standards from the USDA, which aim to offer more nutritious choices for school children, including wholegrains, fruits and vegetables, and milk that is lower in sugar and calories
