Shenkin Speaks Out About School Nutrition

American children over the past three decades have become increasingly obese. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies, the childhood obesity rate during that time has more than doubled for children 2-5 and 12-19 years old, and has more than tripled for children ages 6-11. In 2004 nine million children over age six were considered obese, and the number has continued to grow.

Dr. Jonathan Shenkin, assistant clinical professor of health policy and health services research and pediatric dentistry, will try to help reverse this trend next Monday at a meeting of the Committee on Nutrition Standards for Foods at IOM in Irvine, California. Shenkin will be one of seven speakers from four states invited to comment on state efforts to reform school nutrition policy. IOM will use information provided as part of a forthcoming study.

Shenkin will speak about the development of school nutrition standards in Maine, where he served on the state’s Commission to Study Public Health as head of the subcommittee on children, nutrition, and schools.
“What I will try to convey to IOM is how well the process worked on our end and some of the barriers to legislative success,” he says.

Improving school nutrition is an uphill battle. Instilling an understanding of proper portion size and nutrition is difficult enough, Shenkin says, but the real challenge is the force and ubiquity of food marketing targeting kids.

But it is also a battle dentists can help fight. “I’d like to see more dentists involved,” he says. “If you talk to pediatricians dealing with obesity there are almost identical nutritional issues: too much sugar and too many calories.”

The IOM report on school nutrition will be published in the fall.