Local school makes campaign to improve school food

Share On Social!

This March, Grow Hartford Youth, a youth led group that works to give youth a voice, launched the “10 Slices of Justice” campaign for Hartford Public Schools in the downtown Hartford Public Library.

The launch was held within the Hartford Arts & Activism Fair, where youth stood up with their campaign to help discuss solutions for problems they see within their school lunches, like small portion size, and quality of lunches.

The campaign was all youth led, and where students were able to talk about what were the issues in their school lunches. They discussed the points of the “10 Slices of Justice” campaign, including changes they wanted to see like bigger portions, better quality foods made from scratch, variety of local options, culturally appropriate foods, and more varieties of foods.

In 2014 over 80 percent of the students in Hartford relied on free and reduced lunches, now all students in Hartford Public Schools are eligible to receive free school lunches, but students are still working through Grow Hartford Youth to make sure lunches meet nutritional preferences.

Latino students face a great burden when it comes to diabetes and obesity according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, one out of every two Latino children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes if current trends in childhood obesity go unchecked.

The importance of healthy school food environment is one step in helping to encourage healthier lifestyles for all students.

To learn more about this change, click here.

To learn more about research on healthier school food environments for Latinos, click here.

Copy & Share on Twitter: Local school makes campaign to improve school food #SaludAmerica http://salud.to/1S6PRtL