Nutrition project to improve students' physical fitness

As one of the pilot schools of the project, the Experimental School Affiliated to Niulanshan First Secondary School offers the nutritious catering class and runs a "happy farm" for its 3,400 students to experience farming in person.

Fan Hongyu teaches students how to recognize vegetable seeds, explains growth characteristics of plants, and guides them to grow vegetables including chives and cucumbers.

When the vegetables are ripe, she encourages students to bring some back home and cook for their parents.

Vice-principal Zhao Jinlong said the school plans to invite vegetable farmers to guide students and teachers through the cultivation process step by step. He expects the students will learn some planting knowledge and better appreciate the pains and gains of different occupations.

To help students become healthier, the school has intervened in both eating and physical exercise at the same time by organizing rope jumping and long-distance running.

The prevention and control of chronic diseases should start with children and should be jointly run by the health and education authorities, according to Li Yindong, head of the center for disease prevention and control of Shunyi District.

Shao Chunyan, a health teacher, said the school plans to assign sports homework during the winter vacation in January 2020. Students will be required to complete a number of daily exercises such as sit-ups and rope skipping. "So we can ensure that students exercise regularly and maintain a healthy lifestyle at home," she said.

To make the campus more supportive of the "Nutrition School" project, the school has also held plays on nutrition, lectures by nutritionists, and imparted health tips to students.

The changes are obvious. Fan Hongyu can hardly recognize some of her ninth graders when looking at their old pictures given the dramatic changes in their appearance over the past three years.

One of the boys told her that he was 1.73 meters tall and weighed 90 kg in the seventh grade and now he is 1.78 meters tall and weighs 70 kg.

Since the implementation of the project, the rate of undernutrition among students of the pilot school dropped by 0.5 percentage points, and the overweight rate and obesity rate dropped by 0.5 and 1.7 percentage points, respectively.

In 2017, the pilot project expanded to seven other districts and counties of seven provincial-level regions including Shandong and Sichuan.

The campaign has brought changes not only to the students but also their parents.

Lyu Yanqiu, mother of Zhang Tengyue, a seventh grader, said that when she heard of "nutrition education" for the very first time, she thought the program was focused on "appetite" because the two Chinese words are homophones.

After a visit to the school canteen and dining with the students, she understood the importance of food nutrition and safety, and the need to apply the lessons at home.

Gao Shan, deputy director of the education committee of Shunyi District, noted that tackling students' health-related problems requires concerted efforts by schools, families, and society as a whole.