High-tech battle against obesity

Cheeseburgers and fries, pizza, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. Even though school districts have made strides in balancing those offerings with healthier choices, it's fairly common to see these items show up on a school lunch menu.

Nutritionists would flat-out say this stuff is not very good for you. St. Charles Unit District 303 has eliminated plenty of unhealthy choices in the past few years, getting rid of doughnuts at lunchtime for one.

In addition to watching the menu closely, the district is now on the verge of truly steering youths toward a healthy lifestyle.

Kane County Health Department Executive Director Paul Kuehnert has released reports that show 65 percent of Kane's residents are either obese or overweight. The red flags have been raised that if our current lifestyle habits don't change, a public health problem will reach crisis proportions in the future.

With that real fear facing us, we can understand why District 303 board members, though reluctant about its $170,000 price tag, voted to adopt what amounts to a high-tech wellness program in the schools.

While we have stressed in the past that healthy lifestyle habits have to start at home with good examples from adults about eating properly and exercising, we fully support the notion that schools can reinforce that with more expertise and better technology.

At the same time, we can't criticize the three board members who voted against the new program. They wanted to hold off on the high-tech heart monitors and other software, and wait to see if the textbook portion of the program was effective enough as a start.

But we can't condemn the decision because of its price tag, particularly when similar programs in the Naperville schools have received good reviews, and even national exposure on the "Super Size Me" documentary as a positive step in slowing the obesity trend. It all hits home when Kuehnert states that the current generation of young people could be the first in our country's history to have shorter life expectancy than their parents.

This new program is designed to help students embrace the responsibility to care for their bodies for the long haul.

We applauded the state's recent moves to ban junk food from the schools, and we've seen some excellent balance added to school menus. It's also time to go beyond traditional physical fitness classes and prep sports offerings. Some schools schedule fitness classes that stress walking and swimming, in knowing these are exercises that can become lifelong habits.

We support this type of practical learning in our schools, but do have to go back to something we cannot ignore: The way to get children healthier is to provide healthy examples in our homes. Ordering children off the couch and turning off the computer games or TV to get them outside for physical activities remains a powerful message.