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Click here to watch a video clip in which Dr. Israel summarizes JRC’s nutritional initiative.

Click here for slides from a Wellness Presentation at ABA 2007 Conference.

CONTENTS OF THIS SECTION

We take as an important goal the promotion of the health of our students and our staff. Currently, we have projects under way in four areas: (1) smoking; (2) exercise, (3) weight control and (4) nutrition.

Smoking Policy and Cessation Assistance

Students who are smokers when they enroll at JRC are expected to stop their smoking and are given a 10 week period during which they are allowed to cut down gradually to a zero level. Students who wish to make use of our behavioral self-management training procedures to help them do this are encouraged to do so. Behavioral self-management typically includes the following steps:

  1. Identifying an overall behavioral goal to be achieved over a certain period of time (e.g. a month or a quarter);

  2. Identifying a goal each week that will help one reach the overall goal.;

  3. Selecting a weekly self-penalty (and reward if desired); and an overall self-penalty (and reward if desired) that one agrees to pay if one fails to reach these goals.

  4. Selecting a monitor who keeps one honest with respect to reporting one’s behavioral data accurately and administering any self-penalties that one has chosen;

  5. Meeting regularly (e.g., weekly) with a group of students who are also working on self-management projects to share data and suggestions. The group is led by one of our clinicians.

Smoking is banned on JRC grounds, with only these two exceptions: smoking is allowed for new students who are cutting down during their first 10 weeks and for one adult student for whom smoking has to be used as a critical behavioral reward.

JRC provides self-management assistance to staff members who wish to help themselves stop smoking. The assistance involves a weekly support group, use of behavioral self-management with staff members functioning as monitors, use of JRC’s restrictive procedures as a self-penalty when necessary, and public posting of the data (for those trying to stop smoking) on the home page of the JRC Staff website.

Exercise Program

The goal of the JRC Physical Education Program is to develop a lifelong pattern of physical activity for all of our students. The ultimate goal of our program is to help our students develop the skills, behaviors, attitudes and knowledge, that will lead to physically active and healthy lifestyles. We try to help our students understand the importance of a lifetime of physical activity regardless of their abilities. It is important that we help all our students, including those with physical and mental challenges. We try to teach the benefits of exercise and the development and maintenance of exercise and conditioning throughout life. We believe that a Physical Education Program should include a solid foundation of health related fitness education to help our students lead a happy and healthy life!

During physical education classes many of our students work on a Fitness Gram program. This is a fitness assessment test designed to assess cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance, muscle strength, flexibility and body composition. The Fitness Gram program allows us to set fitness goals for each student and to measure the student’s effectiveness in achieving them.

JRC students participate in at least two physical education classes per week in which they work out in our Physical Education Room. The Physical Education Room has a variety of exercise equipment. The students are also required (weather permitting) to participate in 30 minutes of exercise per day, outside on our hiking trails and basketball court. JRC has about 10 acres of woods behind and beside its administrative building and parking lot at 240 Turnpike Street, Canton, and has developed several nature paths in this wooded area that are approximately 1/2 mile in length. These walking trails are quite popular with both staff and students.

During the summer months the classrooms rotate field trips to two of our beautiful built-in swimming pools located at JRC residences. There the students are able to work on their swimming skills and play group games. In addition, the physical education schedule allows extra time for students who need or want to work out either for weight issues or for the pure joy of exercising!

Weight Management

Weight goals are set for any student who is overweight or underweight, using the Body Mass Index measure. Many students are overweight when admitted to JRC, sometimes due in part to the psychotropic medication that they may have been receiving in previous programs. Such students generally lose their excess weight at JRC when they are taken off the psychotropic medication and exposed to the JRC’s healthy food program. A special committee of senior administrators meets each week to review the weights of any students who are in either the overweight or underweight categories, or who are in any danger of falling into one of these categories, in order to make sure that each such student is making progress in reaching his/her weight goals.

Systems to Promote and Teach Good Nutrition

JRC has made a careful study of modern nutritional science, in order to determine what makes up an optimal diet. To do this, we attend nutritional conferences each year and invite prominent nutritional experts to visit JRC and give lectures to both our staff and students. Among the experts we have consulted with so far are: Mike Anderson, Antonia Demas, Ph.D., Ann Esselstyn, Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., Joel Fuhrman, M.D., Michael Greger, M.D., John McDougall, M.D., Jill Nussinow, R.D., Neal Pinckney, Ph.D., and Harvey Zarren, M.D. JRC also employs a full-time licensed nutritionist and consults with a nutritionist at Children’s Hospital in Boston.

Although these experts are not in total agreement, there is general agreement that an optimal diet emphasizes low-fat, natural, plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables and legumes and that de-emphasizes refined and animal-based foods. When carried out thoroughly this kind of diet has even shown itself capable of reversing heart disease and contributing to the prevention of cancer 

To educate and motivate our students and staff toward this kind of nutrition, JRC has created the projects and systems listed below. You will note that a number of these projects are aimed at our staff members. This is partly because we believe that if we can change the nutritional habits and attitudes of our staff members, this can help to change the nutritional habits and attitudes of our students. 

  • Nutritional Course on Films. JRC has assembled a nutrition course comprised of films and videotaped lectures by prominent nutritional specialists. Currently this course comprises about 21 hours of films.  (Click here to view a list of these films) Many of these films have been shown to our higher functioning students and to our staff members. After each film, the viewer is required to answer a set of questions that are designed to test whether he/she understood certain key points in the film or lecture.
     

  • Lectures. JRC has invited the following experts to visit JRC as consultants: Mike Anderson; Antonia Demas, Ph.D., Caldwell and Ann Esselstyn, M.D., Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (right), Michael Greger, M.D., Jill Nussinow, R.D., Neal Pinckney, Ph.D., and Harvey Zarren, M.D. Typically each expert gives a separate talk to our staff and students with a question and answer session after each.
     

  • Self-teaching software for films. JRC has designed special proprietary software. called the “JRC Tutor,” that: (1) presents a segment of an instructional film (say, 3-5 minutes of the film), (2) then asks multiple-choice questions based on the content of the film segment that was just presented; (3) accepts the student’s answer and gives immediate feedback on each question as to whether the student answered correctly or not; (4) presents the next segment of the film, (5) asks questions based on that next segment, (6) gives immediate feedback as to whether the student answered correctly or not, etc. The first use of this software has been to present the film “Eating” by Michael Anderson. “Eating” is a good general summary of contemporary nutritional science. (Click here to learn more about this video) Our plan is to have each of our higher functioning students, and many if not all of our staff use the JRC Tutor to study the film “Eating.”
     

  • Optional nutritional lunch plus film every two weeks. Every other week we offer a free, nutritious luncheon to any staff members that wishes to attend. Accompanying the lunch is the showing of a 30-45 minute segment of one of our nutritional films.
     

  • Development of a nutrition primer. Our nutrition initiative has taught us that there is a considerable need for a nutrition primer that will present the most basic concepts concerning calories, weight, nutrients, etc. in a very simple and easy-to-understand format. We have commissioned two of our consultants to assist us in the development of this primer and will probably design it for presentation with the JRC Tutor.
     

  • Nutrition lounges. We have created two special nutrition lounges, one in each of our main administrative buildings (240 Turnpike and 250 Turnpike). Each lounge contains a refrigerated coin-operated vending machine which is stocked with nutritious items for purchase throughout the day. Each lounge also has a different nutritional video that is playing in the lounge throughout the week, as well as a library of books on nutrition that can be loaned out to interested persons.
     

  • Elimination of coke, candy and similar vending machines. We have eliminated all vending machines that dispense nutritionally-deficient or harmful food. We have installed an air popper for the pop corn popper in our Big Reward Store.
     

  • Salad bar. We have installed a salad bar in our multi-purpose room that also serves as the student lunchroom and dining room. A variety of fresh salad ingredients are delivered daily to the school and the contents of the salad bar are change daily. In addition to this salad bar, we have also planned a prepared salad to accompany each student’s meal.
     

  • Nutritionally-optimal student menus. We have revised our student menus to insure that all of the food that we serve to our students meets our nutritional requirements. Recently we evaluated the results of this nutritional change on the total cholesterol levels of our students and found that we had produced major health improvements as shown by this measure. For the details on the results, please click here. We continue to give students certain choices over the foods they eat. On four or five meals each week students can choose an “unhealthy alternative” to an item offered in the current student meal. And once each week students can, through demonstrating good behaviors, earn the opportunity to “order out” some fast food from a local restaurant, whether they make healthy choices or not. These opportunities for students to make choices in their meals gives us a chance to evaluate whether we are making headway in changing the attitudes of the students toward a more nutritionally healthy perspective.
     

  • Food tastings. Each day a group of five or so administrative staff members, accompanied by Dr. Israel whenever he can participate, have a “food tasting.” At these tastings we taste and evaluate the evening meal being served to our students and also taste new dishes prepared by our chef and/or by our catering agencies. We invite two or three students to join us for these tastings and invite the students to give us their reactions not only to the food being tasted, but also to any other aspect of JRC that they wish to comment on or complain about. A group of senior staff members, including Dr. Israel, also taste the lunches served to the students each day. In addition, we ask the students to rate the meals that they are served each day in order to understand what foods they like and do not like.
     

  • Recipe books. We have created special recipe books that contain recipes for foods with high nutritional value and make these books available to our staff and parents.
     

  • Recipe contest. We have a recipe contest in which we invite members of our staff to suggest recipes that would meet our nutritional guidelines and that we might add to our school menus. A weekly prize of up to $100 is provided for the best recipes suggested. We also encourage parents to suggest recipes.
     

  • Cholesterol Incentive Program. From time to time we offer an optional 13-week incentive program for our staff in which, if staff members are able to reduce their total cholesterol by 20% by adopting healthier nutritional habits, they are able to earn an extra paid day off from work. Persons who participate in this project are able to purchase breakfasts, lunches and dinners from JRC and to make use of special exercise and lunch rooms; also, a weekly support group is held for the participants.


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