Nutrition: blending policy and programs.

USDA Secretary Mike Espy has proposed reorganizing USDA around six central missions to reflect contemporary concern and needs. USDA recognizes the need to go beyond its role in improving the production and distribution of food, and to establish nutrition education programs that promote healthful

Forging a Common Focus

For nearly half a century, USDA has woven an intricate network of programs to provide access to food. Programs such as the Food Stamp Program, WIC, School Lunch Program, and others have provided food to many needy people. Yet, despite the unquestionable value of these programs, they have lacked a common identity and focus. In the reorganized USDA, the food programs will become nutrition assistance programs, recognizing that nutrition is a basic ingredient of preventive health care.

Each school day, USDA provides meals to some 25 million children in 90,000 schools across the country. But a recent USDA study found the meals served to and eaten by school-children exceed dietary guidelines for fat, saturated fat, and sodium.

Given the scientific evidence of the link between diet and health, it is essential to improve the nutritional quality of the school meals. The Department has a responsibility to concerned parents, taxpayers, and the millions of children who eat a school meal each day, to ensure that those meals conform to the Federal government's nutrition policy indicated in USDA's "Dietary Guidelines for American."

USDA recently completed a series of regional forums focusing on ways to improve the nutritional quality of the school meal programs. This issue touches everyone - in school and out. Parent, teachers, students, pediatricians, food-service workers, cardiologist, coaches, farmers, and chefs have testified at these forums.

USDA has already doubled the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables offered this year in the National School Lunch Program from last year's total distribution of 8.8 million pounds. And the Department has pilot programs underway to test the use of low-fat mozzarella and cheddar cheese in school lunches.

On another front, the Food Stamp Program provides an excellent opportunity to offer nutrition information and help recipients make food purchases base on sound nutrition. The Food Stamp Program is the nation's Primary defense against hunger and the second-largest public assistance program. Today, food stamps help sustain the health and wellbeing of 27 million American every month.

While low-income populations are at greater risk of diet-related chronic disease, these communities and groups often have not been reached with the nutrition message. But in one USDA food program - the WIC program - nutrition has been central from the beginning. In just two decades, the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) has grown from a pilot project operating in a few counties to a national program serving 6 million low-income women, infants, and children each month.

WIC has had such success in part because nutrition education has been built into the program. USDA intends to build on the WIC model to make nutrition education an integral part of all 14 food assistance programs.

New Media For the Message

To be fully successful, USDA's nutrition message must be communicated more effectively. While Americans live in a technologically sophisticated world, USDA continues to disseminate information mainly by paper pamphlet. Therefore, USDA is planning a comprehensive coordinated national campaign on nutrition education - one that uses more varied media and more creative techniques to produce persuasive and far reaching communications.

* Tapping the talents of audiovisual professionals. Secretary Espy and Assistant Secretary Haas recently met with the president of Walt Disney Studios o discuss ways of reaching young people with nutrition information that is lively and entertaining.

* Working with professional chefs. Employees in the school lunchroom and students in the classroom can learn that nutritious food can also look good and taste good.

* Providing video programs in food stamp offices. While food stamp applicants wait in reception rooms to be assisted or interviewed, lively video programs can deliver an effective nutrition message.

* Bringing producers into schools. When the country was founded Americans understood their connection to the land. Children knew where their food came from because they had watched it grow. For today's children, food comes from the frozen case at the supermarket or the drive-through window at the fastfood restaurant. It's time to reestablish the continuum from seed to supper.

* Encouraging continued market response to consumers' call for more healthful products. No one has been more creative than the groups representing agricultural commodities in responding to the call for more nutritious foods that are both appetizing and healthful. The meat and dairy industries, for example, have worked to provide and promote lower fat products.

* Forging partnership with state and local institutions. All who are part of the food system - consumers, farmers, industry, and government - have a stake in improving the nutritional well-being of Americans.

USDA's current nutrition agenda is an agenda for change. Rather than a "silver bullet" approach, USDA plans a complete integration of nutrition into its food programs. Just as the "buckle-up" campaign has saved lives on the highways, we need to "buckle up" with a positive image of proper nutrition. The campaign must be comprehensive, consistent, and one that can be sustained overtime.

Good nutrition is preventive medicine. As Federal food assistance policies refocus on their nutritional mission, the gap between dietary guidelines and their application in food programs will close. The health of our future depends on the future of our health.