A bright spot

Last week I mentioned some welcome good news (a rare thing these days) about progress in child nutrition in West Virginia. Here's a little more about that.

In the wake of the passage of the 2013 Feed to Achieve Act, the 2010 federal Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, and some great  leadership from the WV Office of Child Nutrition, WV leads the nation in school breakfast participation.

This really is a big deal since many kids in WV lack basic food security and since a healthy breakfast improves learning, health and behavior. WV has also been an early leader in adopting the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) in most counties. CEP allows school boards to provide free meals to all kids in schools where 40 percent or more of kids are directly certified to be low income.

What is particularly dramatic about WV's performance is the fact that breakfast participation has shot up from 29 percent in 2009 to 51 percent in 2014. This is largely due to the fact that more and more counties have adopted new breakfast delivery systems, like grab and go and breakfast in the classroom.

The ultimate goal of child nutrition advocates is to make free, nutritious meals available to all children as just another basic part of the school day. And we're moving in that direction.

A champion for children

El Cabrero's Spousal Unit is a Spanish teacher. At one point, she was talking to students in WV's poorest county about the custom of a midday siesta or lunch/nap, a custom in many Spanish-speaking countries. She asked them whether they'd prefer to have a siesta or a regular school lunch period as is the custom here.

You might think the idea of a long break away from school would be the top choice, but it wasn't. The kids said they liked it the way it was done at their school, "because everybody gets to eat."

Whatever their other hardships, those children were fortunate enough to live in a county where the school system made feeding all children regardless of ability to pay a top priority.

It is sad but true that even in the 21st century, many children in West Virginia (and elsewhere of course) don't have basic food security, which is defined as existing "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life."

Obesity, by the way, an all too frequent occurrence here, doesn't disprove food insecurity. It often accompanies it. Cheap processed foods high in calories and fat and low in nutritional value often form the diet of the poor, especially of those living in "food deserts."

Here's something else to think about. During all the days when school was cancelled due to weather, many kids do without nutritious meals.

Still, WV has taken some strides in fighting this problem. In 2013, the legislature passed the Feed to Achieve Act, which ultimately aims to ensure that all schoolchildren in the state enjoy at least two free nutritious meals a day. That hasn't happened yet, although a great deal of progress has been made.

A big reason for that progress is that WV is blessed to have a real champion for children running the state Office of Child Nutrition. His name is Rick Goff and I'm proud to consider him to be a friend. He was profiled in this recent article in the Charleston Gazette.

Goff's counsel was heavily relied upon as state Senator John Unger and others crafted the Feed to Achieve Act. He is on fire to make sure that we end the "hunger games" in this state. And with people like him in the fight, we just might get there.

A sampler

Here are a few items that caught my eye today...

A PLACE AT THE TABLE. Lately I've blogged several times about WV's new law that aims to ensure nutritious meals to all state schoolchildren. Here's the website about a new film on food insecurity that helped nudge the state legislature along. The movie should be widely available soon and is being shown in some theaters. It's by some of the same folks who made Food Inc., which is really worth seeing if you haven't yet.

ALL IN A CHART. Here's a look at what's messed up about our tax system.

URGENT NEANDERTHAL BREASTFEEDING UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The Dude really does abide

El Cabrero is a big fan of Jeff Bridges, and especially of that masterpiece of cinematography The Big Lebowski. That's a film that I feel like I've lived, not just watched--especially on those days when the world micturates on my rug, metaphorically speaking. It tied the whole room together...

I didn't realize until recently that Bridges was a major anti-hunger activist. Here are a couple of great quotes from his foreword to A Place at the Table, the companion book to a film of the same name. Here goes:

Charity is an important provider of emergency assistance, but it is not a way to feed a nation. We don't protect our national security through charity, and we shouldn't protect our families that way either.

What could be more important for our nation than finding a solution to this important problem with such an impact on our future? If another country was doing this to our children, we'd be a war...

West Virginia is trying to get a handle on the entwined problems of hunger, food insecurity, poor nutrition and obesity. Its legislature recently passed the Feed to Achieve Act, which aims at nudging counties, schools, nonprofits and individuals to ensure that all school children in the state receive at least two nutritious meals per day and engage in physical activity. It also encourages creative solutions to these problems beyond the school day and the school year. It's going to take work, but I hope we can move beyond charity towards justice.

After all, the Dude has spoken.

A really big deal

El Cabrero has been in a purple agony of waiting for the last few weeks. It had to do with when and whether  WV Governor Earl Ray Tomblin would announce his decision to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Or not.

That step, if taken, would be the biggest advance for social justice that I've ever seen in this state. It would raise the eligibility level from around 35 percent of the federal poverty level to 138 percent. It would save lives, create jobs, and eliminate a lot of unnecessary misery.

Tomblin delayed his decision until he and his administration studied the results of an actuarial study about the likely results. Meanwhile, people who care about working families in this state have done everything they could to encourage a positive response and provide political cover.

By Tuesday afternoon, I heard unofficial rumors that a decision would be announce the following day--and that it was the right decision. By Tuesday night, it was official. On Wednesday, the expansion was officially announced at St. Francis Hospital in Charleston where over 100 people gathered for the occasion. Among the speakers was of course the governor but also Senator Jay Rockefeller, who fought hard to pass and improve the Affordable Care Act at the federal level.

It was a great day and a great step forward and will mean health coverage for lots of working West Virginians. Estimates range from 90,000+ to over 150,000 people. The number I've seen the most is 120,000. These are the people who serve our food, wait on us in stores, take care of our children and elderly and do all the low paid grunt work that keeps the world on the rails.

Thanks and congratulations to Governor Tomblin for taking this step!

Meanwhile, I keep thinking that something strange is happening in my beloved state. In the last few months, West Virginia has taken several steps in a positive direction. In addition to expanding health care, it made huge advances in universal early childhood education, which could help with all kinds of problems. It also passed an innovative law aimed at improving child nutrition and took some common sense steps towards reforming an overcrowded prison system while also restoring funding for child care for working families and for programs aimed at preventing family violence.

If this is a dream, don't wake me up.

Full load

A lot of interesting items have caught my eye recently. First, El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia is, according to a Gallup poll, officially the most stressed state. Hawaii was the least. Maybe they ought to send us to Hawaii for a while and see how that works.

ONE POSSIBLY STRESSED WEST VIRGINIAN is a Republican legislator who suggested elementary kids should have to work for their meals, the poor ones anyway. Stories about the debate on the Feed to Achieve Act, when the comments took place have shown up on the Huffington Post and a Washington Post blog.


Here's what he said during the debate: "If they miss a lunch or they miss a meal they might not, in that class that afternoon, learn to add, they may not learn to diagram a sentence, but they'll learn a more important lesson."

I'm not sure what that lesson might be. 

AT LEAST OUR LEGISLATURE DIDN'T DO THIS. According to the Post's Wonkblog, Montana may have blown its chance to expand Medicaid because one confused legislator cast an unintentional vote. Doh!

HAIRY THUNDERER OR COSMIC MUFFIN? Another study suggests that people who believe in a punitive God are more likely to have emotional problems. And, I would surmise, to kill people in the name of that God.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Birthday boy

It has come to my attention that today is the birthday (or the day the birthday is celebrated anyway) of the great philosopher Aristotle back in 384 BC. He is pictured in Raphael's School of Athens beside his older teacher Plato. Characteristically, Plato point upward to the realm of the Forms while Aristotle points downward to the earth.

Dante called him "master of those who know" and I will say he did pretty good.

Speaking of Dante, thanks to the Spousal Unit, I am now a paid up member--I would say card-carrying member but they don't issue cards--of the Dante Society of America. I'm presuming that membership comes with a license to raise hell. Mine hasn't come in the mail yet but I guess I don't have to wait.

JUST ONE LINK about WV's innovative legislation aimed at combating child hunger and obesity.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED