http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...lo_WCVB/2056032

School Program Offers Prizes For Healthy Eating
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One local school system is trying an innovative new approach to getting children to eat healthier.

NewsCenter 5's Heather Unruh reported that the Lynnfield program, called Imove, offers children a variety of healthy choices that are awarded with stamps or points that can be traded in later for prizes.

"I got the chicken Caesar wrap, and it tastes very good," said fifth-grader Nikki DiRico.

Children can still opt for cheeseburgers and French fries, but Lynnfield students who pick Imove meals win.

"I want that little skateboard thing," said fifth-grader Frank Cammisi.

Healthy picks mean stamps, or points that add up.

"All the way up to a mountain bike. From sportswear, shirts, water bottles, backpacks -- the more points they accrue, the better the rewards are," said Manuel Costa, president of the Costa Fruit and Produce Co.


Costa came up with the pilot program to combat childhood obesity. Lynnfield signed on with astonishing success.


"Incredible. I never thought it would take off this much. We've increased our lunches by at least 20 percent just on Imove. The kids love it," said Lynnfield Food Service Director Nancy Antolini.


Imove lunches cost about $2 and contain no more than 25 percent of calories from fat, and the kids don't miss it.

Fifth-grader Peter Foustoukos said he is eyeing two prizes, but said that's not his main incentive.

"I'm doing this because I want to eat healthy because it's better to eat healthy, and the food tastes great, too," said Foustoukos.

In Lynnfield, it's becoming hip to be healthy.

"I don't want to eat bad food because I don't want to get big," said DiRico.

Given the power to choose, most students choose healthier foods. The school said incentive or not, everybody wins.

"My mom says it's better to eat than the regular hot lunch. And I like it better than the regular hot lunch," said Cammisi.

Costa is funding the program, but it's looking for sponsorship from a major sports team. The company is also looking to expand to other schools this fall, so it's very possible Imove's fit lunch could be coming to a school cafeteria near you.

Well it's a laudable move, and a great idea, but they still miss the boat by defining healthy as «25% of calories or less as fat»....

True Mitch.....but it is a start.

And the grand prize is a chocolate cake and liter of Coke!

This is the same story but a little more detailed, i've only included the bits I found interesting, but you can read the whole story here

http://www.boston.com/business/glob...hool_cafeteria/


CONSUMER BEAT
Some healthy lessons in the school cafeteria
Lynnfield students get merchandise for spurning junk food
By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 3/7/2004

LYNNFIELD -- Fifth-graders file into the middle school cafeteria here and are immediately confronted with a choice: To the left is a traditional lunch consisting of a sub sandwich, cookie, banana, and drink. To the right is something called an imove lunch, featuring low-fat chicken nuggets, green beans, a roll, Jello, and milk.


The imove menu includes chicken Caesar salad wraps, stir fry, pasta and broccoli salad, fresh fruit, carrot sticks, and yogurt. It also includes such kid favorites as chicken nuggets (albeit a low-fat, low-sodium version), lasagna, and pizza. The big difference is that pizza is never offered with a side of french fries; instead, its high-fat content is moderated with sides of green beans and yogurt.

''We're trying to teach kids that, in moderation, things like chicken nuggets and pizza aren't forbidden," said Maureen Kelly Gonsalves, a dietician doing consulting work for Costa on the imove menu..

No more than 25 percent of the calories in any imove lunch or snack can come from fat. Moreover, snacks cannot have sugar as their primary ingredient and must have some nutritional value. Baked Lay's potato chips, for example, are low in fat but have almost no nutritional value, so they don't qualify.

The imove standards are more rigorous than those of the US Department of Agriculture. The USDA requires that no more than 30 percent of the calories in a week of school lunches can come from fat. The USDA has no standard for snacks.

Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital in Boston, said he applauds any move to counter the $10 billion spent by food manufacturers to influence children to buy fast food, soft drinks, and junk foods.

But he questioned the imove focus on fat calories. He said several studies have found that fat alone is not a major determinant of body weight, and suggested the focus should be on serving healthful fats and carbohydrates. A packet of almonds, for example, is very high in fat calories and wouldn't qualify as an imove snack. ''But it's a good type of fat and it's very satiating," he said.

The program is an extension of changes Antolini had already been making. She had pulled the candy Fruit by the Foot off the shelves, inciting a protest from a handful of students who demanded it be returned. It wasn't. She also stopped selling very popular Lay's barbecue potato chips because the fat content was so high. She is also replacing white bread with wheat.

But it's often more expensive to serve better food. The wheat hamburger buns she plans to start ordering cost 3 cents more per bun than the white ones. She worries that she may have to increase the price of the lunch from $2 to $2.25 to keep food quality high.

Antolini hopes to extend the imove program to Lynnfield's two elementary schools next year, but doesn't plan to take it to the high school. She said older students, even by eighth grade, are pretty entrenched in their ways.