The Third Annual Youth Policy Summit on

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT NUTRITION IN AMERICA'S SCHOOLS

Keystone Science School (KSS) and The National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics,
Science and Technology (NCSSSMST)

June 17-24, 2006

For the past two summers, Keystone Science School (KSS) and the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST) organized an unusual and highly successful pilot project on policy-making involving 75 students from 12 specialized math and science schools in 9 states.  The two previous Youth Policy Summit topics were Sustainable Energy for Transportation and Child and Adolescent Nutrition in America.  Through months of preparation for each summit, students conducted research on various topics surrounding the topic of the year, and uploaded their research papers onto the website for other participants to view.  Participants attended the Youth Policy Summit in Keystone, Colorado in June where they learned about conflict resolution techniques and had an opportunity to develop a recommendation paper for distribution to key decision makers in their community as well as in national and state government. 

Building on these successful efforts, KSS and NCSSSMST now plan to organize and implement a third Youth Policy Summit with a focus on child and adolescent nutrition in America's schools and the country’s growing problems associated with obesity. The project will involve 40 students and 10 teachers from 10 schools, 6 staff members from The Keystone Center, and food, nutrition, and medical experts from prominent non-profits, corporations, and government agencies.

Childhood obesity is increasingly a topic of public conversation in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that the treatment of illnesses related to obesity now costs America $93 billion a year. Health care for overweight and obese individuals costs an average of 37 percent more than for people of normal weight, adding an average of $732 to the annual medical bills of every American. CDC’s analysis, reports The Washington Post, “affirms what many doctors have long asserted -- that obesity is a major factor in America's rising health care costs” and that “obesity should be targeted as aggressively as smoking.”

As incidence rises and public discourse grows shriller, appropriate policy responses are needed. Many facets of the problem are being scrutinized in laboratories, corporate boardrooms, legislative chambers, in the pages of best-selling books, and in households where average Americans struggle with weight.  As with other complex policy problems, interest groups with stakes and agendas on the subject matter -- food producers, educators, health workers, nutrition specialists, pharmacology experts – must inevitably come forward with proposed solutions. Ideally, this should happen before differences of opinion escalate into legislative, regulatory, or legal battles.

In tackling the problems associated with nutrition, numerous challenges must be considered, among them:

• Persisting research needs (e.g., the role of genetic inheritance in binge-eating, prevention and treatment interventions, prevalence disparities among different demographic groups).
• The prevalence and nutritional value of restaurant foods
• Food-related advertising and marketing to children and students.
• Responsibility for health care costs associated with obesity.
• Curriuculum development in schools to address nutrition issues
• Labeling and corporate marketing practices.
• Use of “natural” products to accelerate weight loss.
• Funding and promotion of physical exercise in schools.
• Composition of, and funding for, school lunch menus.
• Links to television-watching, both negative and positive.

To accelerate America’s campaign against obesity, policy discussions will inevitably need to be informed by state-of-the-art scientific and technical information, multi-disciplinary and multi-sector, and skillful in problem analyses and critical thinking. These “inputs” will then need to lead to the development of new analytic frameworks and action plans within the public sector (legislation and regulation), the academic sector (research priorities), the private sector (product selection, marketing and advertising, and risk communication), and the civic sector (advocacy agendas).  Most importantly, collaboration and consensus building will require leaders to find smart directions and stick with them.

Click Here to view the report and student recommendations from the 2006 Summit on Child and Adolescent Nutrition in America's Schools.