Kirk Shrum

There's some good news -- but mostly bad -- when it comes to student health in Hamilton County, according to a recent comprehensive yearly report by local officials.

While students have become more aware of healthy living, many continue to be sick, obese, sedentary and generally unimpressed with healthy food, said Russell Cliche, director of the Hamilton County Schools Coordinated School Health Department.

"There are so many people who do get it now, health with the academics ... they go together," he said. "But schools can't do everything. It's tough when kids come to school and don't eat any fruits and vegetables at home. They go home and tell their parents, 'This food is terrible!'"

According to the report, which apprises the state Department of Education on how well Hamilton County is doing with the $175,000 coordinated school health grant it received two years ago, the system has seen "a 600 percent increase in diabetes-related events, (40 to 45) percent or more of our students are overweight or obese, and poor health has been proven in numerous studies to have a negative impact on a student's academic success and attendance rates."

Mr. Cliche also points out that some schools are not in compliance with some state and federal health laws. The district could be fined thousands of dollars in a state audit next year if they do not comply, he said.

For instance, some elementary schools continue to break the Tennessee vending law by selling soft drinks and candy, Mr. Cliche said. Others are not making certain their students get a required 90 minutes of physical activity each day, but Mr. Cliche declined to name any of the schools breaking the laws.

"We're working on compliance," Mr. Cliche said. "The report speaks for itself."

Thanks to recess and weekly PE classes, elementary schools shouldn't have trouble meeting the 90-minute mandate, said Kirk Shrum, principal of Daisy Elementary.

School Superintendent Jim Scales said many high school students earn the required half-credit of physical education through participation in organized sports, cheerleading or marching band. A greater amount of required activity might be a good idea, but is somewhat impractical in the face of other demands, he said.

"I think it's important but, on the other hand, there's only so minutes in the day -- when do you get everything in?" he asked.

In Hamilton County and most other districts around the state, there is just not enough of a focus on changing schools' unhealthy culture and habits, Mr. Cliche said.

For instance, at the high school level, cookies, chips, soft drinks and junk food are for sale regularly all day long, often for booster club fundraisers. While the sales do not break the Tennessee vending law, which prohibits sale of the items from vending machines during lunch, it encourages unhealthy eating, the report states.

But doing away with selling junk food would represent a significant loss in revenue for clubs using it for fundraisers, Mr. Cliche said, so it's difficult to eliminate completely.

The concession stands at Signal Mountain Middle-High School made more than $10,000 last year to support the school's athletic programs by selling items such as pizza, nachos, candy and soft drinks. But because Signal Mountain is a middle-high school, vending machines must operate under the stricter middle school laws, which means they're stocked only with water and baked goods, none of the "huge moneymakers" such as soft drinks or candy, Mr. Gravitte said.

"It's not that we don't pay attention to rates of teenage obesity, but we still need to look at our budget and what we need," he said. "With how much it costs to run athletics, there's no way you could function on gate receipts alone."

Mr. Cliche's health report also mentions the school district's need for about six more school nurses. In 1999, Hamilton County employed 22 school nurses but, due to increased illness in students, last year they were up to 60, Mr. Cliche said.

The more overweight and unhealthy students become, the greater is their risk of heart disease, diabetes, asthma and all manner of immune system diseases, which often require a nurse's care, Mr. Cliche said.

When it comes to the food served in school cafeterias, Hamilton County officials have taken steps in recent years to make meals healthier, said Dee Harwell, a dietitian with the Coordinated School Health Department.

Although the nutrition department is in the process of revising next year's menus and could not provide nutritional information for the school system's meals, Ms. Harwell pointed to healthier offerings such as whole-wheat pizza crust, baked chicken nuggets and turkey hot dogs.

"You might glance at the menu and say, 'They're having corn dogs?' But it's healthy corn dogs, so to speak," she said. "The cafeteria manager fights the battle of: Well, we tried giving them salads, but they throw them in the trash.

"Our strategy is to keep offering it, and eventually they'll come around."

In addition to more nutritious food, some health-related progress has been made in Hamilton County since the Coordinated School Health Department came to the district through the state grant two years ago, Mr. Cliche said.

More than 20 local schools have formed health teams, while others have painted food pyramid murals, bought workout equipment for staff and increased communication to students and parents about eating well, exercising and being healthy.

Celeste Caroland, whose 8-year-old daughter, Kristy, attends McBrien Elementary, said she thinks the school system really is trying to be healthier. She has even walked through the lunch line with Kristy and heard the cafeteria workers tell students they can't get pizza and bread because they are allowed only one carbohydrate.

"I get a little irritated sometimes when people make the schools totally responsible when parents are a child's first teacher," she said. "It's parents' responsibility to teach their children at an early age how to eat responsibly. The school is just an extension of that; it should be a cooperative effort."

While the health of his students is important to him, Mr. Shrum said it can be difficult for principals to balance all the responsibilities of leading a school.

"As a principal, our focus is on academics, but we're told we've got to focus on health, too," he said. "It's tough."