With the increased availability of processed, high-fat, high-calorie, heart-attack-in-a-bag fast food to the point of not even leaving one’s seat, American’s waistlines have been bulging more and more over the past two decades.

According to the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention studies documenting data from 1991 to 2005, the number of obese adults has increased by more than 20 percent in some states.

In Washington, the percentage of adult obesity has climbed from a range of 10-14 percent in 1993 to more than 20 percent in 2002. It has remained under 24 percent since. In 2004, 90 percent of Kitsap County students in 8th, 10th and 12th grades were at healthy weights, according to the county healthy youth survey. Updated county specific numbers should be available in early 2007 as the Kitsap County Health District will conduct another healthy youth survey in October, said KCHD health promotion manager Melinda Harmon.

Following a state legislative mandate in 2005, schools in North Kitsap and around the state are implementing nutritional and wellness policies in an attempt to curb rising youth obesity rates.

“Last year, we introduced a new health curriculum in the elementary school. And I’m hoping that the focus on nutrition and fitness is helping kids learn what the facts are, and then to be able to bring the actual information to bear in the choices they make,” said NKSD’s head health consultant Maggie Smith, RN. “I think it has to be supported by the child’s whole environment.”

School environments across the North End got a dose of healthy reinforcement this school year as a district-wide policy passed during the summer of 2005, went into effect Sept. 6.

The policy documents both school nutrition and physical education guidelines, NKSD director of food and nutrition services Dan Blazer said.

In the second part of its youth health series Sept. 27, the Herald will look into the school fitness side of the policy.

“We’ve set a guideline for ensuring that foods that are available to students other than in the food service program have some nutritional standards,” Blazer said of the policy’s nutritional side. “All foods that have been considered to be foods of minimal nutritional value will not be available to kids during the school day.”

Those guidelines are that no food, in competition with the school breakfast and lunch program can exceed 35 percent of fat from calories, 10 percent saturated fat from calories or 35 percent sugar by weight. Soda machines and candy bars — from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. — and Krispy Kreme fund raisers are things of the past in NKSD schools.

“Your main nutritional resources should be solid and good. It’s like putting good fuel in your car,” Smith said. “That whole concept of eating to provide the energy that you need to feel good and think clearly … I don’t think most of us think of food as fuel for a good healthy life.”

While the foods that are in competition with the school breakfast and lunch program that don’t meet the guidelines have been eliminated, the district’s program will stay the same, offering a variety of healthy options for NK kids, Blazer said.

“The key thing that people need to understand about the school lunch and breakfast program is the amount of food we offer on a daily basis isn’t enough to create or cause a child to become obese,” he said. “It’s probably due more to a lack of activity.”

Sept. 27, the North Kitsap Herald will look into the active world of an iPod generation raised on comfort and technology in terms of the physical activity portion of the NKSD’s new nutrition and wellness policy.