School district offers prizes to kids who eat healthy

LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Anyone who has ever dealt with a picky eater knows that bribery—if you eat these peas, I’ll let you have a cookie—can only get you so far. Sooner or later, the kid is likely to up the ante and demand an ice cream sundae. But that isn’t stopping a Colorado school district from raffling off prizes such as movie tickets and iPods to students who decide to buy lunch at any campus cafeteria in town.

What’s being offered to these students isn’t the sodium and fat-laden tater tot and pizza meal of days gone by. Through its “Hungry to Win” incentive program, Jeffco Public Schools in Jefferson County, Colo., is trying to get kids to purchase lunches that adhere to healthier federal meal guidelines.

“With all the new regulations and the changes that we’ve made, our lunch participation has gone down,” Lori Burris, Jeffco Schools lunch facilitator, told9News. “So this was to be an incentive to try school lunch and maybe bring them back.” Along with the movie tickets and iPods, students can also win jump ropes, bicycles, and iTunes gift cards—but only if they purchase a meal.

Students are “used to something a little different,” Burris said. “So we wanted to encourage them to come back and try it and show them that it really tastes good. It’s just a bit different.”