The charitable giving component of Life Time Fitness, Inc., the Life Time Foundation, announced that it will expand its nutrition program to four schools in Chicago, Dallas, New York and Phoenix. The program provides funding for schools to change their lunch menus to serve healthier and more nutritious options to children, said James McGuire, the director of the Life Time Foundation. Deephaven Elementary School in Minnetonka, Minn. was the first school to implement the program.
“We have a focus on improving school lunches because we see it as an opportunity to have a direct impact on hundreds of kids at one time,” said McGuire. “However, we do not limit our focus solely on school lunches. We also encourage families to institute these healthier habits at home and provide them with the tools and resources to accomplish this.”
The program eliminates high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, trans fats, artificial colors, bleached flour, processed sugar and hormones from school lunch menus. According to McGuire, the Life Time Foundation will cover the additional costs — such as increased staffing and cost of ingredients — associated with implementing the new menu for up to three years.
“Working in partnership with the schools food services staff, Life Time’s registered dietitians make these changes by keeping the menu looking familiar to the kids with ‘kid-friendly’ foods, but changes the ingredients which go into the foods so that they will be healthier options,” said McGuire.
The positive feedback the Life Time Foundation received from Deephaven Elementary inspired them to expand the program, said McGuire. “We have received positive feedback from all the parties involved. We have made adjustments to the menu over the course of the year based on the feedback we received from both parents and kids. This has been helpful for us to have a great partner in Deephaven Elementary to learn what the kids enjoy and what other things they would like to see in their menus. We will take this same approach to any new schools we partner with,” he said. To further promote a healthy lifestyle, the foundation plans to form a parent committee at each school that implements the program in order to receive feedback.
Applications to the program are being accepted online through March 28, 2012, and schools can apply at http://www.ltffoundation.org. “Our long-term plan is to expand the initiative to include at least one elementary school in each of the 27 metro areas in which we have a presence. The vision we have is also to partner with other outside organizations to help bring healthier lunches broadly across the country. The obesity crisis our country is facing is getting worse and needs to be addressed at an early age in order to stem the tides of current trends,” said McGuire.
By Rachel Zabonick
