School to track kids' diets

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SAN ANTONIO, -- Cameras and bar codes will be used to monitor children in five San Antonio elementary schools to get a true picture of their eating habits, officials say.
Funded with a $2 million grant from the U.S. Agriculture Department, Dr. Roberto Trevino created the Bienestar school health program he says gives a breakdown of calories, nutrients, fats and sugar taken in by each child, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
The program is a high-tech version of a comestible lie-detector test, the newspaper said. If a child's nose lit up like a red balloon when his or her calorie or fat intake exceeded a given level, there wouldn't be a need for this study but people don't always do what they should or tell the truth when you ask them, Trevino said.
"People tell you what you want to hear. Parents aren't going to tell us the truth, that they're feeding the children high [levels of] sugars or fatty food," he said. "Diabetes and obesity in children is an enormous problem. If we're going to be able to impact those diseases, we're going to have to understand them better. And nutrition is a big component."
San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent Robert Duron said poor health "can often affect student school attendance, their grades, their test scores and their ability to pay attention in class and stay focused."
The monitoring program will use two cameras at the cash register and two at the disposal window to take before and after pictures of trays that will be analyzed by sophisticated software.
Children with permission to participate will have bar codes on their trays that will be tracked and shared with cafeteria managers who might use them to adjust the menu.

 
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