Fremont starts campaign for healthy food choices

Carrots – not candy. Salad – not hot chips. Water – not soda. These are the types of healthy choices three Fremont Federation students hope their classmates will start making. The three students – Violet Souksavath of Media Academy, and Lilli Davis and Elona Everett of Mandela Academy – are part of a new campaign called Health Wellness, led by the Policy Leadership Program of School Health. The three students, along with Tiger Clinic Health Educator Katie Riemer, joined groups from about seven high schools at a retreat at Oakland’s Preservation Park on Jan. 9 to share their ideas about what should be done to get students to make better food choices and to have healthier communities.

Riemer said she wanted to have a healthier community but she needs students' opinions on how to create it."

Students have the voice, not only adults," said Everett, who really wants to include student opinions on having a healthy community.

Architecture Academy senior Kenia Venegas said that she hadn’t heard about the campaign but thinks that it is a great idea to help students make good choices when it comes to food. Vanegas, who has family members who are overweight, is concerned about how students are making bad choices by eating junk food every day. “People should make [healthier] decisions on what they should eat to improve their health,” said Vanegas.

This program is “under construction” and the three youths are getting their ideas together to come up with a successful and fun program, said Riemer. The next steps for the group of young health activists are to recruit students from all the schools at Fremont Federation to be a part of the committee.