Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

One of the most impassioned speeches about childhood nutrition that I've seen anywhere is this letter that Christopher Kimball had published recently in the Boston Globe. Christopher Kimball is the founder and editor of the magazine Cook's Illustrated, and the host of the TV show America's Test Kitchen.

It's worth clicking to read the whole letter, but here's an excerpt.

Stop feeding my kids the offal from the bottom of the processed food barrel: turkey loaf, chicken nuggets, processed macaroni and cheese, high fructose corn syrup, palm oil, preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, and whatever surplus foodstuffs the USDA happens to have on hand that week.

One of America's greatest shortcomings is the triumph of commerce over culture even when it affects the health and well-being of the next generation. For the most part, public schools have abdicated their sacred role as guardians of our children's minds and bodies and have succumbed to the lure of either budgetary pressures (one large school district in Colorado signed a $10 million pouring rights deal with Coca Cola) or simple convenience.

Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino is the self-proclaimed education mayor. Our nation's first lady is a former teacher and advocate for better schools. We've all heard speeches galore about the quality (or lack thereof) of public school education. Yet our kids are nothing more than a gigantic captive market for our nation's fast-food industry and dumping ground for low-quality USDA surplus.

One day, mothers and fathers across America are going to wake up, throw open the window, and yell, ''We're mad, and we're not going to take it anymore!" Like Hercules, we are going to clean the stables of the corporate profiteers, the bureaucrats, and the number-crunching nutritionists and demand that school lunches be put back on the front burner.

How about that day being tomorrow?

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Have you noticed? In the last few years, there has been more attention than ever on feeding children healthy foods. Consider all these different groups:

• Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver's campaign is credited with having a profound effect on the British Government's decision to ban junk food from schools.
• In an official proclamation declaring National School Lunch Week, President Bush declared that "by helping our children make healthy choices not only about food but also about their overall well-being, we can reduce the rates of childhood obesity and diabetes and help prevent heart disease, stroke, and other diseases later in life. Nutritious meals can also improve students' concentration and help them succeed in school." And don't forget these related federal programs.
• A coalition of food suppliers has launched a campaign called Eat Smart Grow Strong.
• Stonyfield Farm is leading a grassroots effort to get children to eat healthier food.
• The Center for Science in the Public Interest has a massive, multifaceted campaign designed to help citizens improve nutrition for young people.
• As we'll seein the next post, Cooks Illustrated founder and editor Christopher Kimball, who is also the host of TV's America's Test Kitchen, is on the case too.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. There are similar public and private programs at regional and local levels across the country and around the globe.

Of course, all of these programs have their strengths and weaknesses. One thing to keep in mind: in programs sponsored by food manufacturers, drug companies, or those with a financial, political, or social motive, the potential is there for the science to be clouded in favor of such views. But the one really good thing is that every one of these programs promotes the idea that children should be getting a greater percentage of their calories from healthy foods like fresh vegetables and fruit. Who can argue with that?

The approach Dr. Fuhrman describes in Disease-Proof Your Child takes the generally accepted bandwagon a step further and surveys the science of disease-causation in an impartial way--so that parents who are looking to protect the health of their children can know exactly what they need to do with scientific integrity. The book has precise recommendations to help protect children against later life cancers and most other diseases. The fact that childhood food choices are the major factor governing tragic illnesses later in life has a silver lining: now parents (not doctors and drug companies) have the power to prevent disease.

As Dr. Fuhrman points out, "research scientists have been forced to accept the idea that the causes of cancer are usually set into motion more than 50 years before diagnosis. Our big artillery in the war on cancer is truly in our kitchen; but we must start feeding our kids right to unleash the big guns."

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Of course, there are a million reasons to feed children healthy food in schools. Inspiring better behavior and academic performance, preventing diseases like obesity, teaching healthy habits...

Author, former school kitchen administrator, and Food and Society Policy Fellow Ann Cooper adds another reason: money. In an article from 2004, Cooper cites USDA statistics in coming up with this assessment:

It costs approximately $6,000 to feed a child lunch during the entire tenure of their K-12 education, and it costs our health care system and our taxes approximately $175,000 per adult, for illnesses related to poor childhood nutrition.

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