VIDEO TOUTS HEALTHY EATING.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Tasked with making a video to interest students in eating healthy, Lancaster High School's movie production students borrowed from ``A Christmas Carol'' with a little ``Back to the Future'' thrown in.

In the 15-minute ``Joey's Ghost,'' an overweight junk food-snacking teen is visited by the ghost of his health class teacher, who takes him back to the 1970s to see his mother as a trim and fit teenager, then to his middle-age future in a doctor's office as a gray-haired man with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, rotting teeth and diabetes.

When he awakes the next morning, the teen fishes a partially eaten apple out of an open chip bag, takes a bite, and declares, ``Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and I'm going to make the most of it.''

``The kids did it. They produced it and put together the whole thing,'' board president Donita Winn said. ``It's a really cute video.''

The video was made in response to new federal legislation aimed at promoting health and battling childhood obesity. One hundred DVD copies are being pressed and will be distributed to local high schools.

School districts are being required to adopt by next school year ``wellness'' policies that encourage healthier cafeteria menus and snack items.

Antelope Valley Union High School District officials said, by July 2007, at least 50percent of the beverages sold on high school campuses have to be ``healthy,'' and, by July 2009, sugary sodas will be banned.

The district set up a wellness committee and wanted a way to impart the news to students, said Thomas Mayton, movie production teacher at Lancaster High.

``They had been talking about how they could do something to get the students' attention, some kind of introduction video that would be more than a talking head, more than people saying, `This is why we are changing the way we serve food,' and how to be more healthy and get more exercise,'' Mayton said.

Like countless TV writers over the decades, the committee decided to do a take-off on Charles Dickens' ``A Christmas Carol,'' a Victorian morality tale about Ebenezer Scrooge.

The video was produced during the summer using students from Mayton's summer school movie production class and a summer school drama class. About 40 to 50 students participated.

The lead role was played by Daniel Aguirre Jr., a football player whom Mayton described as ``250 pounds of beef'' and not fat.

A sheet was wrapped around Aguirre's waist to thicken his middle, and he kept his shoulders slumped and his belly out.

A school receptionist played Joey's mother, a Lancaster High student played the mother as a teen, the drama teacher the health teacher ghost.

The video starts out in the health teacher's classroom with students reacting in protest and with dismay to news that sugary and high-fat foods are out, and healthier food is in.

Later that night in his bedroom, Joey is shown playing computer video games and eating junk food that litters his desk. He goes to bed snuggling a bottle of pop like a teddy bear.

The ghost, who has a green complexion and is wearing what looks like a black graduation gown, visits Joey in the middle of the night and takes him back to the 1970s, when schools didn't offer fast food.

``Back in the '70s and '80s, you went to the cafeteria, stood in line, and got what everybody else was having. There weren't vending machines, soda machines, Taco Bells or pizza places on campus,'' Mayton said.

The video shows his mother as a teen playing Frisbee. ``She looks good,'' Joey says, drawing a disapproving look from the ghost who says, ``You realize that's your mom.''

The video ends with Joey as a hunky football player, who gets the girl who turned him down when he was fat.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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