On school days, Ellie Scott, a Grade 8 student at Central Kings Rural High School in Cambridge, N.S., tries to remember to leave home with $3.50-in case it's "spaghetti day" at the cafeteria. "I just love it," she enthuses about the whole-wheat pasta with tomato, meat and vegetable sauce.

If it's not spaghetti day, Ellie might have made a ham sandwich or green salad, or perhaps she'll buy a turkey burger at the cafeteria. What she can't purchase is pop, hot dogs or french fries, because according to the Food and Nutrition Policy for Nova Scotia Public Schools, Central Kings isn't allowed to sell junk or fast foods.

That doesn't bother Ellie, who is tall and slim but sometimes craves chocolate and jellybeans. "Every kid wishes she could pick up a bag of chips or a can of pop whenever she wants," she admits, "but I try to eat healthy because I don't want to get sick." Plus, Ellie knows there are practical benefits to being well nourished. "If I was hungry in class I'd be thinking, man, I wish I had eaten," she says. "If I don't have to think about being hungry, I can focus on my schoolwork."

Thanks to similar policies in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador-plus the efforts of numerous parents, schools, public health nurses, registered dietitians, community organizations and government departments-students from kindergarten through Grade 12 are finding it easier to eat well at school. These efforts are vital, because obesity rates are rising in children and youth in the region.

The situation is alarming. Lisa Morrison, a clinical dietitian at the IWK Health Centre's diabetes clinic in Halifax, has treated a 13-year-old girl weighing 330 lbs and another girl the same age who was 194 lbs. Both were being tested for obesity-induced type 2 diabetes.

"In the early 1990s, type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents was basically unreported," says Morrison. "Now there's a huge need for an obesity clinic for children in the province." The antidote isn't rocket science: kids need to eat less and move more. "Generally, inactivity and  too much high fat or high sugar foods-too much pop, huge portions-are the biggest factors," says Morrison. 

Lifelong benefits
Public health nurse Joyce Trafford in Woodstock, N.B., works with the Healthy Learner's Program for Middle Schools in District 14. All 12 of the district's junior high schools have cafeterias, and some have vending machines, but none sells pop or junk food. "If pop disappeared off the face of the Earth, I wouldn't be upset," says Trafford. "If kids can understand why they should make healthy choices and what those choices are, even if they don't have the support at home right now, our hope is that they'll make those choices as adults and parents."

Strides are also being made in Prince Edward Island, where registered dietitian Charmaine Campbell is the provincial school nutrition co-ordinator with the Charlottetown-based P.E.I. Healthy Eating Alliance. Campbell deals mostly with 19 junior and senior high schools, overseeing breakfast programs, helping students organize cooking clubs and supporting staff members who want to improve their school's food.

"I've seen many positive changes in the past five years, mostly in what schools are serving," says Campbell. While she and her colleagues develop exercise and nutrition programs in schools, she's aware that it may take decades before more students are fit and healthy than aren't. "We don't expect everything to change overnight, but I hope that one day it'll be easier for families and schools to make healthier choices because of our work."

Making school environments healthier is a win-win for health and school officials alike Heather Morse is principal of Somerset and District Elementary School, which Ellie Scott attended, near Berwick, N.S. When Morse started there in 1996, she witnessed first hand the impact of poor nutrition on students-not so much on their weight as on their attention span.

"We don't have a cafeteria, but at lunchtime the small canteen was selling pop, chips, hot dogs, burgers, fries and pizza with fatty meats," says Morse. "I was shocked. I had never seen such inappropriate food being served in an elementary school." Morse, a former physical education teacher, talked to her staff about the students' hyperactivity, linking their inattention to the junk they were eating.

"Studies have shown that when children eat healthy (food), it increases their ability to learn," says Morse. "As for maintaining healthy weights, we know that diet and exercise go hand in hand." Along with tossing the non-nutritional foods, the canteen now sells fresh fruits and vegetables, tuna wraps, baked potatoes and whole-wheat bagels with cheese. Morse developed a fitness program that includes noon-hour soccer, hockey, football and baseball games. Last October she received the Women of Excellence Award in Education and Research from the Canadian Progress Club's Halifax-Cornwallis chapter, for her promotion of such initiatives.

It's one thing to meet children's nutritional needs at school, but their main role models are at home. Bill Scott is Ellie's father and a substitute teacher at Somerset School. In the summer of 2006, when he was 54, he fulfilled a personal goal when he cycled from Vancouver to Nova Scotia. Just a few months earlier, he had learned that he had reached a body mass index of 33, which classified him as obese. At 211 pounds, "I knew I was chunky, but I had no concept of being overweight," he says. "Discovering I was obese was my wakeup call."

Soon after his revelation, Scott pulled an old bike out of his barn and went for a seven-kilometre ride. "The route was pretty flat, and I thought I was going to die," he says. "I started biking regularly and stopped eating for two. I never cut any foods out, I just reduced portion sizes and increased exercise." He arrived home from his 48-day bike trip a lean 155 pounds; the longest distance he had cycled in one day was 206 kilometres.

Scott now counts himself among his daughter's healthy-living role models. Along with Ellie's mother, Anne, 41, an Acadia University administrator who runs to stay fit and cooks healthy meals; Ellie's half-sister, Maggie, 30, a vegetarian; and the Somerset School staff. Ellie says she can't predict the future, but "I hope I will continue to eat healthy, because it helps me focus and gives me energy," she says. "And I know that if I eat healthy all week, it's okay for me to have a bag of Skittles as a reward."

For children who aren't able to make wise nutritional choices on their own, healthy-living advocates such as Daphne LeDrew, the executive of the St. John's-based Kids Eat Smart Foundation Newfoundland and Labrador, a registered charitable foundation that supports nutrition programs, fill in the gaps. "It would be wonderful if these programs in schools were no longer needed in the future, but there will probably always be people who will have challenges meeting their families' nutritional needs," says LeDrew. "In the meantime, we'll be here for them."

Atlantic Canadian kids in poor shape The body mass index is a tool measuring overweight and obesity rates. Taking weight and height into account, it represents different levels of health risks (for more information, go to Health Canada at www.hc-sc.gc.ca and type "calculate body mass index" in the search box. Additional information on diet and weight control is available from the Heart and Stroke Foundation website www.heartandstroke.ca/splash/).

In 2004, the combined overweight/obesity rate of 2-to-17 year-olds in Nova Scotia was significantly above the national level at 32 per cent. Of this age group, 9.4 per cent were classified as obese. More than one in four preschool children in Newfoundland and Labrador are overweight or obese (and that province has the highest rate of overweight and obesity in the country among older children and adults).

A study funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Information's Canadian Population Health Initiative reported in 2005 that students in Nova Scotia schools where a comprehensive healthy living program was provided-physical education, healthy foods, nutrition education, staff training and parental involvement-had significantly lower rates of overweight and obesity, had healthier diets and reported more physical activity than students in schools without such a program.