Obesity Issue

Since our first lady has taken on the Obesity Issue the national committee "Taking it to the Streets" (which has been focusing on the the H1N1 issue) is planning on adding Obesity one of their major issues and causes.

February 16th I attended a meeting with a local representative from Woodbury and addressed nutrition and obesity is support of physical and nutrition education. Cherry Cramer and Wendy Ambrose were also in attendance.

After telling stories from my classroom the representative asked me to write her about these stories so that she could share them with her committee members. The following is the letter that I sent. Jane Hinrichsen



It has come to my attention that there are bills being written to add standards to physical education to address the obesity issue that seems to be increasing in society.

I am pro physical education but I find that there should also be education on healthy eating in nutrition.

I am a Family and Consumer Sciences (formerly know as Home Ec) teacher at North High School in North St. Paul. (Grades 9-12) I live on the northern edge of Cottage Grove.

As a Family and Consumer Sciences Educator it has been well known that the image of what we do is "just cook and sew", it was often assumed that we just re-enforce what children learn at home and should know how to do these things because of the examples they see.

I can honestly say that this is no longer true.

I have countless examples of students growing up in environments where healthy food is not the norm and supplies that many take for granted are not available.

When a students misses a cooking lab they often have to make them up at home. I have had students tell me, "We don't have measuring cups and spoons and we can't afford to buy them what should I do?", "I can't make up a lab unless it's pre-made and goes in a microwave that's the only food we buy at my house." "I can't make that recipe we don't have sugar or flour at our house."

I could once assume many things in a classroom but I can no longer assume that a students knows basic things like, before you put hamburger into soup or chili it should be browned. Yes, I have had students put it in raw.

I can't assume that students know you should cook in a sauce pan or frying pan, I've found them cooking in metal bowls with the bowl on the burner.

Do I go through instruction before cooking? Yes. Do I require they read and write the recipe before cooking? Yes.

These are basic things that we once assumed that children and would know and learn in their lifetime from home. We can no longer assume that that is true. Students need Basic food and nutrition courses because society either does not have the means to cook at home or they choose not to cook at home and use convenience to make life simpler.

I hope that when congress works on budgets and education standards that we look at basic needs along with the test scores that seem to drive what is important in education today. We need to teach to the masses and requiring more difficult courses is not going to make our students smarter mostly just more frustrated.

Very sincerely,

Jane Hall Hinrichsen