Kids attending Country Bear Day School in Columbus didn’t scrunch their noses or scowl when their turkey and cheese sandwiches began arriving on wheat instead of white bread. The preschoolers even smiled recently when they took heaping bites of broccoli, said director Pam Jolley.
“I think more and feel better about what we are feeding them,” Jolley said about Country Bear’s participation in the Rutherford/Polk Smart Start NAP SACC program.
Smart Start initiated the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC) project in one Polk County and five Rutherford County childcare facilities last summer.

Country Bear Day School in Columbus began the program in July 2010 with 30 Polk County children, ages 2-5, benefiting from the project.
Smart Start Director Cathy Bowers said the idea targets increasing physical activity and improving nutrition among kids before they reach elementary school. In recent years there has been a big push to reduce childhood obesity at the elementary level, but Bowers said by then kids have developed poor, deep-rooted habits.
“With a 15.6 percent obesity rate in Polk County children before they’re even old enough to attend school, we feel it is extremely important not to wait until they’re school-age to start working on better nutrition and increased physical activity,” Bowers said.
Through NAP SACC, health specialist Karen Powell works with the centers to create obtainable goals.
Jolley said she was surprised to see how well even her younger kids took to the new foods.
“The cauliflower they looked at kind of funny at first but they love the broccoli,” Jolley said. “It’s a great program. The kids are getting to see a variety of foods – more fresh vegetables.”
Kids attending Country Bear have tried broccoli and cauliflower and now also drink 2-percent milk instead of whole.
Powell said she has noticed a reduction in the number of servings of juice during the week. She said while these seem like healthy options, juices often contain exorbitant amounts of sugar. Powell suggests offering water or milk instead. But even milk presents an issue. Powell said many childcare providers and parents opt for giving whole milk to kids. She said once a kid is past the age of 2, whole milk should be replaced with less fattening versions such as 1 or 2 percent.
With the first year of the project 3/4 of the way completed, Bowers said she’s been amazed by the positive feedback.
“We initially had apprehensions on how well the teachers would cooperate and ‘be invested’ in making necessary changes,” Bowers said. “We’re elated that in the participating center in Polk County and the five centers in the project in Rutherford County, all the directors and teachers have shown overwhelming support of the project. They realize the important part they can play in preventing and reducing the obesity rate in young children.”
Powell doesn’t expect the centers to meet their goals alone. She sits down with each one to discuss the goals and break them down into obtainable action items.
She said menus present the most looming issues in these centers. Powell said all the centers must meet federal USDA guidelines for their food programs. When nutrition directors or cooks come up with menus that fit these requirements, it becomes a struggle to get them to change things up, Powell said, because they might often be afraid of missing a federal guideline. The issue arises when you realize a Pop Tart qualifies as a bread under these rules, Powell said. She’d prefer to see centers serving pancakes or Cheerios than Pop Tarts.
“We want the staff to be eating what the kids are eating as well,” Powell said, pointing out that kids learn behaviors from the adults they are around. “We also want them to get the kids outside. They can paint outdoors or lead the kids in group activities. The main thing again is that we want teachers actually moving and participating with the kids – interaction is key.”
She said it becomes difficult to convince a child to eat his or her veggies, when their daycare teacher is scarfing down a fast-food cheeseburger, or ask them to run and play tag when their teachers are sitting down chatting.
Bowers said this also can’t be a one-time program.
“We don’t want to do the program six months and then say, ‘Okay, you’re done and then drop efforts entirely. It’s about the follow up and building each time to improve,” Bowers said.
“As long as Smart Start remains in the N.C. state budget next year, we intend to offer the program to more centers each year until we have involved all that are interested,” Bowers said.
With låess than 14 percent of Polk County’s birth to 4–year–olds enrolled in licensed childcare centers, however, there is only so much that can be done through Smart Start.
Bowers said the next challenge is to reach young children attending childcare programs outside of Polk County or who stay at home with a parent, other family member or a babysitter.