A new program at Vicksburg Intermediate and Bowmar Avenue Elementary schools is taking aim at poor nutrition through student education.

Modeled after the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi’s “Truth” anti-tobacco campaign, Kidz Bite Back shows students the dangers of poor nutrition, to both their health and performance in school.

VIS and Bowmar are the first schools in Mississippi to participate.

Langston Moore, communications director with the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, described how the program works.

“It’s based on the best practices from the teen tobacco prevention efforts,” Moore said. “It basically calls on kids to be the voices in food justice issues. The idea is to have the kids getting the message out to help food companies, give us what we want with healthy options.”

Moore said the first step is educating the students and exposing them to healthy options.

“It’s the education about what a banana tastes like,” Moore said. “I can eat three bananas and get the same caloric intake as one unhealthy option. Just like with tobacco education, we have to get these adults on board and basically relearn how to cook our food.”

Gail Kavanaugh, Vicksburg Warren School District child nutrition director, emphasized the importance of health to student performance.

“Children that are better nourished perform better,” Kavanaugh said. “They perform better in the classroom and they perform better on testing.”

Kavanaugh said the Kidz Bite Back program is just one of many ways the school district is trying to help students maintain a healthy lifestyle.

“I think you will find, if you go look online at our menus, they are loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables,” Kavanaugh said. “Some of the measures are by policy and others are encouraged behaviors that we ask educators to comply with. All of us have to work together. It takes the cafeterias and it takes the parents and it takes the classroom teachers.”

Moore said several factors in Mississippi combine to make obesity a serious issue for the state’s well-being.

“There’s a gamut of factors, from food deserts which is an access issue, to unhealthy choices we’re making,” Moore said. “On top of that, there’s a lack of places to exercise.”

Moore said even if the right decisions are being made at school, students need healthier options afterward.

“There’s a lot that goes into this,” Moore said. “It’s about exercising more and changing your habits. In Mississippi, that’s hard because 76 percent of our counties are food deserts.”

Food deserts are areas with little access to larger grocery stores that offer fresh, affordable foods needed to maintain a healthy diet.

“One of the big things is the lack of grocery stores,” Moore said. “Studies revealed that it doesn’t make sense for Walmart to go into Mississippi and build a store in every town. So we get these convenience stores that offer all these unhealthy options like fried chicken and all the veggies are cooked in grease.”

One step the VWSD has taken is to disconnect all of the deep-friers and replace them with ovens. Kavanaugh said that switching to ovens is the right decision, but an expensive one.

“We have multiple schools that have the combination ovens, but they’re expensive and a big line item on budgets,” Kavanaugh said. “We’re replacing them as we can on our budget, but we’re also going to be applying for grants from the Bower Foundation.”

“Kids love to teach,” Moore said. “In the same way they’re going to go home and say, ‘Tobacco’s going to kill you,’ they’re going to go home and say ‘We want healthier food.’”

Kidz Bite Back started in 2007 and was a pilot program in Florida for three years. Initially, 3,000 students in 14 schools participated in the program. Since 2010, the program has provided health information for more than 25,000 students.