Florida schoolchildren put on South Beach Diet as strategy to fight adolescent obesity

More public schools need to get involved in adopting healthy food choices, banning soft drink vending machines, and encouraging schoolchildren to make healthier choices.

• Lunch these days for about 2,700 grade schoolers is low-fat and low-carb - a la South Beach Diet.
• The menu switch is part of a children's health study by Miami Beach cardiologist Arthur Agatston, author of the best-selling South Beach Diet books.
• If the diet helps students maintain a healthy weight, the study may be expanded to other school districts.
• "We have to prove that we can go into a school system and without totally and expensively uprooting everything, make changes that will have a positive effect," Agatston said.
• Students have been measured, weighed and fitted with pedometers to count each step they take and encourage them to keep active.
• "We are not putting them on a diet, so to say," Agatston said.
• "We're teaching them to make better choices."
• Instead of breaded chicken products and the white bread sandwiches found at many schools, the students get grilled chicken fajitas and ham on whole wheat.
• The South Beach Diet eliminates carbohydrates during the first two weeks, but those restrictions were excluded from the school program.
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