“I commend Manteca Unified,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, “for having not just one – but seven – of its schools be the first in California to meet the HealthierUS School Challenge through their commitment to address obesity.”

The USDA recently announced the first California schools to meet the gold-level criteria of the department's HealthierUS School Challenge, a program designed to encourage healthy school lunches and to raise students' awareness of nutrition and wellness. What do the seven winning elementary schools have in common? They are all located within the Manteca Unified School District. When your town is named after the Spanish word for lard (the result of a proofreading error, it turns out), you have to try harder.

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