translator: joseph genireviewer: camille martãnez i am a chef and a food policy guy, but i come from a wholefamily of teachers. my sister is a special edteacher in chicago. my father just retiredafter 25 years teaching fifth grade. my aunt and uncle were professors. my cousins all teach. everybody in my family, basically,teaches except for me.
they taught me that the only wayto get the right answers is to ask the right questions. so what are the right questions when it comes to improvingthe educational outcomes for our children? there's obviouslymany important questions, but i think the followingis a good place to start: what do we think the connection is between a child's growing mind and their growing body?
what can we expect our kids to learn if their diets are full of sugarand empty of nutrients? what can they possibly learn if their bodiesare literally going hungry? and with all the resourcesthat we are pouring into schools, we should stop and ask ourselves: are we really settingour kids up for success? now, a few years ago, i was a judge on a cookingcompetition called "chopped."
four chefs competewith mystery ingredients to see who can cook the best dishes. except for this episode --it was a very special one. instead of four overzealous chefstrying to break into the limelight -- something that i would knownothing about -- (laughter) these chefs were school chefs; you know, the women that you usedto call "lunch ladies," but the ones i insistwe call "school chefs."
now, these women -- god blessthese women -- spend their day cookingfor thousands of kids, breakfast and lunch,with only $2.68 per lunch, with only about a dollar of thatactually going to the food. in this episode, the main-coursemystery ingredient was quinoa. now, i know it's been a long time since most of you have had a school lunch, and we've made a lotof progress on nutrition,
but quinoa still is not a staplein most school cafeterias. so this was a challenge. but the dish that i will never forgetwas cooked by a woman named cheryl barbara. cheryl was the nutrition director at high school in the communityin connecticut. she cooked this delicious pasta. it was amazing. it was a pappardelle with italian sausage,
kale, parmesan cheese. it was delicious, like,restaurant-quality good, except -- she basically just threw the quinoa,pretty much uncooked, into the dish. it was a strange choice, and it was super crunchy. so i took on the tv accusatory judge thingthat you're supposed to do, and i asked her why she did that. cheryl responded, "well, first,i don't know what quinoa is."
"but i do know that it's a monday, and that in my school,at high school in the community, i always cook pasta." see, cheryl explainedthat for many of her kids, there were no meals on the weekends. no meals on saturday. no meals on sunday, either. so she cooked pastabecause she wanted to make sure she cooked something she knewher children would eat.
something that would stickto their ribs, she said. something that would fill them up. cheryl talked about how,by the time monday came, her kids' hunger pangs were so intense that they couldn't even beginto think about learning. food was the only thing on their mind. the only thing. and unfortunately, the stats --they tell the same story. so, let's put thisinto the context of a child.
and we're going to focus on the most important mealof the day, breakfast. meet allison. she's 12 years old, she's smart as a whip and she wants to be a physicistwhen she grows up. if allison goes to a schoolthat serves a nutritious breakfast to all of their kids, here's what's going to follow.
her chances of getting a nutritious meal, one with fruit and milk,one lower in sugar and salt, dramatically increase. allison will have a lower rateof obesity than the average kid. she'll have to visit the nurse less. she'll have lower levelsof anxiety and depression. she'll have better behavior. she'll have better attendance,and she'll show up on time more often. why?
well, because there's a good mealwaiting for her at school. overall, allison is in much better health than the average school kid. so what about that kid who doesn't have a nutritiousbreakfast waiting for him? well, meet tommy. he's also 12. he's a wonderful kid. he wants to be a doctor. by the time tommy is in kindergarten,
he's already underperforming in math. by the time he's in third grade, he's got lower math and reading scores. by the time he's 11, it's more likely that tommy will haveto have repeated a grade. research shows that kidswho do not have consistent nourishment, particularly at breakfast, have poor cognitive function overall. so how widespread is this problem?
well, unfortunately, it's pervasive. let me give you two stats that seem like they're on oppositeends of the issue, but are actually two sidesof the same coin. on the one hand, one in six americans are food insecure, including 16 million children --almost 20 percent -- are food insecure. in this city alone, in new york city,
474,000 kids under the age of 18face hunger every year. it's crazy. on the other hand, diet and nutrition is the number one causeof preventable death and disease in this country, by far. and fully a third of the kidsthat we've been talking about tonight are on track to have diabetesin their lifetime. now, what's hardto put together but is true is that, many times,these are the same children.
so they fill up on the unhealthyand cheap calories that surround them in their communitiesand that their families can afford. but then by the end of the month, food stamps run outor hours get cut at work, and they don't have the moneyto cover the basic cost of food. but we should be ableto solve this problem, right? we know what the answers are. as part of my work at the white house,we instituted a program that for all schools that had40 percent more low-income kids,
we could serve breakfast and lunchto every kid in that school. for free. this program has beenincredibly successful, because it helped us overcomea very difficult barrier when it came to getting kidsa nutritious breakfast. and that was the barrier of stigma. see, schools servebreakfast before school, and it was only availablefor the poor kids. so everybody knew who was poorand who needed government help.
now, all kids, no matter how muchor how little their parents make, have a lot of pride. so what happened? well, the schools that haveimplemented this program saw an increase in math and readingscores by 17.5 percent. 17.5 percent. and research shows that when kidshave a consistent, nutritious breakfast, their chances of graduatingincrease by 20 percent. 20 percent.
when we give our kidsthe nourishment they need, we give them the chance to thrive, both in the classroom and beyond. now, you don't have to trust me on this, but you should talk to donna martin. i love donna martin. donna martin is the school nutritiondirector at burke county in waynesboro, georgia. burke county is oneof the poorest districts
in the fifth-poorest state in the country, and about 100 percent of donna's studentslive at or below the poverty line. a few years ago, donna decided to get out aheadof the new standards that were coming, and overhaul her nutrition standards. she improved and addedfruit and vegetables and whole grains. she served breakfast in the classroomto all of her kids. and she implemented a dinner program. well, many of her kids didn't havedinner when they went home.
so how did they respond? well, the kids loved the food. they loved the better nutrition, and they loved not being hungry. but donna's biggest supportercame from an unexpected place. his name from eric parker, and he was the head football coachfor the burke county bears. now, coach parker had coachedmediocre teams for years. the bears often endedin the middle of the pack --
a big disappointment in oneof the most passionate football states in the union. but the year donna changed the menus, the bears not only won their division, they went on to winthe state championship, beating the peach county trojans 28-14. and coach parker, he credited that championshipto donna martin.
when we give our kidsthe basic nourishment, they're going to thrive. and it's not justup to the cheryl barbaras and the donna martins of the world. it's on all of us. and feeding our kids the basic nutritionis just the starting point. what i've laid out is really a model for so many of the most pressingissues that we face. if we focus on the simple goalof properly nourishing ourselves,
we could see a worldthat is more stable and secure; we could dramatically improveour economic productivity; we could transform our health care and we could go a long way in ensuring that the earth can providefor generations to come. food is that placewhere our collective efforts can have the greatest impact. so we have to ask ourselves:what is the right question? what would happen
if we fed ourselves more nutritious,more sustainably grown food? what would be the impact? cheryl barbara, donna martin, coach parker and the burke county bears -- i think they know the answer. thank you guys so very much. (applause)
