She's Biking to Build Healthy Eating Habits in Kids

For Sara Salo, Tuesday’s weather may have reminded her of home, but her bicycle shorts have landed her a long ways away from Oregon.

Salo, creator of the School Food Tour, pulled into University High School Tuesday morning as a part of her 6,000 mile bike tour to promote healthy eating at schools across the nation.

Salo’s tour began in Bend, Oregon on August 18 and will end in Houghton, Michigan in Spring of 2012.

“It’s been about two months and it’s been great,” said Salo, who is currently 1,500 miles into her trip. “I’ve spoken at maybe 10 to 15 schools now. I’ve been really well received everywhere I went. The students have all been really engaged and interested in what I have to say, which is very heartening.”

Salo, 29, received her degree in public health from Oregon State in June of 2010, and spent a majority of her college career focused on school food reform and promoting healthy eating options for children.

“After my education, I knew I wanted to promote healthy food, but I wanted to do it in a unique way and really grab people’s attention,” Salo said.

Having also been involved in the athletic arena, formerly serving as a ski instructor, Salo thought that combining the world of athletics into a unique promotional campaign would prove the most successful.

“I wanted to take not only the healthy food, but the physical activity aspect into it as well,” Salo said. “That was sort of the inception of the School Food Tour and really putting together the bike and the food components into one.”

When University High instructor Nance Rosen learned of Salo’s healthy eating tour in April, she reached out to Salo and asked her to pay a visit to the Wildcats’ campus.

Rosen’s hopes are that Salo’s visit will cause the community to take notice of University’s efforts to teach students about proper eating habits.

“I thought it would be great if she came to Uni because I don’t believe we get enough respect for what we’re doing,” said Rosen, who teaches autistic students. “Nobody knows what we’re doing. I thought if she could inspire us, then maybe we could inspire the neighborhood and the community.”

Throughout her trip, Salo has updated her website, schoolfoodtour.org, with daily posts and videos from each stop.

Salo, who rides 50 to 100 miles each day during the tour, commented that her message to students has been about taking baby steps to achieve the ultimate goal of a healthy lifestyle.

“We go through a goal-setting process as part of the presentation, and I really try to encourage specific and very small goals,” Salo said. “I tell them to start small make some small changes, then slowly moving forward into some larger environmental changes.”

However, Salo’s presentation at University did come with a bit of an incentive.

Not only did the Oregon-native come to University hoping to provide some inspiration, she came bearing gifts, holding the first bike giveaway raffle of her trip, awarding University student Carlos Alvarez with a brand new two-wheeler.

“I had this bike and I’ve been saving it for a place where I knew that it would be really appreciated,” Salo said.

The next stop on Salo’s tour will be Phoenix, Arizona.