"When I go to work in the morning, I see kids standing at the bus stop eating chips and drinking asoda," Mr. Menino said in a phone interview earlier this week. "I hope this will help them change theireating habits and lead to a healthier lifestyle."<br> The mayor's attention to healthy eating dates to his days as a city councilman. Most recently he hasappointed a well-known chef as a food policy director to promote local foods in public schools and tofoster market gardens in the city.<br> Although obesity is a complex problem unlikely to be solved just by eating more vegetables,supporters of the vegetable coupon program hope that physician intervention will spur young people toadopt the kind of behavioral changes that can help prevent lifelong obesity.<br> Childhood obesity in the United States costs $14.1 billion annually in direct health expenseslike prescription drugs and visits to doctors and emergency rooms, according to a recent article on theeconomics of childhood obesity published in the journal Health Affairs. Treating obesity-related illness inadults costs an estimated $147 billion annually, the article said.<br> Although the vegetable prescription pilot project is small, its supporters see it as a model forencouraging obese children and their families to increase the volume and variety of fresh produce theyeat.<br> "Can we help people in low-income areas, who shop in the center of supermarkets for low-costempty-calorie food, to shop at farmers' markets by making fruit and vegetables more affordable？"said Gus Schumacher, the chairman of Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit group in Bridgeport, Conn., thatsupports family farmers and community access to locally grown produce.<br> If the pilot project is successful, Mr. Schumacher said, "farmers' markets would become like a fi-uitand vegetable pharmacy （药房） for at-risk families."<br> The pilot project plans to enroll up to 50 families of four at three health centers in Massachusetts thatalready have specialized children's programs called healthy weight clinics.<br> A foundation called CAVU, for Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited, sponsors the clinics that areadministering the vegetable project. The Massachusetts Department of Agriculture and Wholesome Waveeach contributed $10,000 in seed money. （Another arm of the program, at several health centers in Maine,is giving fresh produce coupons to pregnant mothers.） The program is to run until the end of the farmers'market season in late fall.<br> One month after Leslie-Ann Ogiste, a certified nursing assistant in Boston, and her 9-year-old son,Makael Constance, received their first vegetable prescription coupons at the Codman Center, they havelost a combined four pounds, she said. A staff member at the center told Ms. Ogiste about a farmers'market that is five minutes from her apartment, she said.<br> "It worked wonders," said Ms. Ogiste, who bought and prepared eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes,summer squash, com, bok choy, parsley, carrots and red onions. "Just the variety, it did help."<br> Ms. Ogiste said she had minced some vegetables and used them in soup, pasta sauce and rice dishes—— the better to disguise the new good-for-you foods that she served her son.<br> Makael said he did not mind. "It's really good," he said.<br> ……
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