Framework-08-25-14_web

CHAPTER 04: PRIORITY OUTCOMES, INDICATORS AND MEASURES37demonstrations and parent education, and creationof culturally relevant recipes — can bolster children’swillingness to try new foods, thereby ensuring thatschool meals are eaten and enjoyed by children.Further, the purchase of local foods by schoolscan support local producers and processors, andin turn bolster individual or family health throughemployment and income generation, as discussedfurther in Chapter 4.3. Farm to school providesopportunities for public health agencies to collaboratewith related agencies such as agriculture, educationand child care licensing. Specifically from a publichealth lens, farm to school activities may:• Respond to rising public health and nutritionconcerns about childhood chronic diseases andobesity by providing opportunities for childrento consume local, healthy food products such asfruits and vegetables 47–49,52,69–79 , whole grains, andlean proteins.• Provide schools opportunities for incorporatingmore fruits and vegetables in school meals, asrequired by the updated nutritional standards forschool meal programs, 2010 19 .• Have the potential to change the school foodenvironment through educational activities thatemphasize healthy eating and the promotion ofhealthy lifestyles 10,12 .• Change a school’s social and physicalenvironments, including the curriculum and how itis taught 10,20,22,80,81 .• Positively reinforce how children learn about, theirattitudes toward, and relationship with healthyfood through health-promoting messages inschools and sent home to parents, hands-onactivities, introduction of new foods at schoolmeals and adult role-modeling 10,57 .• Inform early food preferences, especially for theyoungest children (0–5 years) 44,82,83 .• Can encourage food-production and foodpreparationskill building, self-sufficiency and selfefficacythrough experience in school gardening orcooking classes 32,85–89 .Using food as an educational tool is an avenue forincreasing awareness and familiarity of healthy foodsand local foods. For example, visits to regional farmscan help children understand where and how foodis produced, perhaps creating a personal connectionwith the farmer who grew the tomatoes served inthe cafeteria. This is not possible when foods arepurchased from much farther away. Emerging reportsindicate that farm to school has been effective instrengthening children’s and communities’ knowledgeabout, and attitudes toward, agriculture, food,nutrition and the environment. Key social connectionoutcomes related to farm to school include:• New connections between learning in classroomsand food eaten in cafeterias• Improved school and community relationships 90• New relationships between producers and schooldistricts 91–93 .Promotion of local and healthy foods can contributeto health promoting messages in our social andphysical environments. At the local and state levels,promotional campaigns such as “Buy Fresh Buy Local”reinforce positive messages about local, healthyfoods.Farm to school activities can support public healthoutcomes at multiple levels of the socio-ecologicalmodel. Figure 8 provides examples of what this canlook like using the SEM. Farm to school activitiescan impact physical environments, such as schoolsettings, and social relationships at each level of thismodel because activities can influence institutionaland individual behaviors.• Provide opportunities for family engagement,thereby ensuring that the healthy eating messageis carried into homes 1,45,51,84 .NATIONAL FARM TO SCHOOL NETWORK