Health and Nutrition
The city has made an effort to reduce childhood obesity among students by promoting exercise and improving nutrition in school cafeterias.
During Mayor Bloomberg's first term, white bread was entirely replaced with whole wheat bread, hot dog buns, and hamburger buns in cafeterias. In 2006, the city set out to eliminate whole milk from cafeteria lunch menus and took the further step of banning low-fat flavored milks, allowing only skim milk (white and chocolate). The New York City school system purchases more milk than any other in the United States; although the dairy industry aggressively lobbied against the new plan they ultimately failed to prevent its implementation.
In October 2009, the DOE banned bake sales. The DOE cited the high sugar content of baked sale goods and that 40% of NYC students are obese. Meanwhile vending machines in the schools operated by Frito Lay and Snapple continue to sell high processed empty calorie foods such as Doritos and Juices. Contracts for the vending machines were awarded in no-bid deals through Mayor Bloomberg's office. As part of the DOE's ambition to create healthy diets among students, as of October, Frito Lay will have to put Reduced Fat Doritos in machines. The DOE considers Reduced Fat Doritos, which contain corn dextrin, corn maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate (MSG), disodium phosphate, artificial flavor, dextrose, artificial color, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate, a healthy snack based on its June 2009 request for healthy snack vending machine proposals. The NYC school lunch menu contains numerous highly processed foods and high sugar content foods including chicken nuggets, French fries, French toast and syrup. NYC also continues to fail to meet the mandatory physical education requirements of NY State, and NYC DOE has failed to maintain or improve playgrounds instead turning them into ad-hoc additional classroom space or parking lots.
In January 2011, more than 1,100 New York City students from 13 schools were offered morning-after pill and other birth control pill (Reclipsen). The pilot program is called Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Health and is facing criticism.
Read more about this topic: New York City Department Of Education
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