How to get kids to eat healthy?

Getting people weaned off a diet of processed food to include more healthy fare is always a challenge. The Mora Independent School District (MISD) has an innovative solution. The cafeteria’s budget had excess funds, so they used it to pioneer a new approach to helping students and staff attain more healthy diets – a Touchless Salad Bar. The unit offers romaine greens, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, cauliflower, cucumbers, red onion, sweet peppers, peas, ham or chicken, and a variety of fresh fruits, while a New Mexico Grown Grants helps sustain access to fresh produce. The option of the salad bar has already increased the participation of students and staff. It’s visually appealing and the students see it as something new and they want to find out how it works which leads them to try the diverse selection of fruits and vegetables which encourages them to choose a healthy option. 

The school social media platforms share photos of the new salad bar and menus are posted on the MISD website as well. The salad bar has a monitor that tracks the usage and popularity of the salad bar, which includes the number of daily servings of vegetables. Because the Touchless Salad Bar is new and currently the cafeteria staff are allowing the students to adapt it and learn how to use it. They soon plan on creating a focus group to discuss and/or conduct interviews with students, teachers, and parents to explore the perceived impact of the salad bar on student health outcomes and academic performance.

It is too soon to know the long-term implications of the Touchless Salad Bar - but it's a great start to see how schools can entice both students and faculty to adopt a more healthy diet.