It was the conspicuous consumption of junk food on campus that first motivated School Nurse Laura Rodriguez to act. She had just started her job with the primarily Hispanic San Elizario Independent School District in San Elizario, Texas, when she noticed many kids seemed to be eating nothing but soft drinks and chips before, during and after school.

That high-volume intake of sugar and empty calories sent off alarm bells in Rodriguez, who has a long family history of diabetes. Having seen loved ones destroyed by the disease, which is prevalent among Hispanics and growing at a frightening pace among all schoolchildren, Rodriguez proposed banning junk food from the campus. But she found no support.

When Borrego Elementary School opened the following year, she transferred, hoping that she could encourage the new school to set an example for the district and the small, impoverished, rural community it served.

One of the first things she did was unplug all the vending machines during school hours. That soon led to a confrontation with the vendors. They said if the practice did not stop, they would remove their machines. When Rodriguez did not budge, they went to the principal, Sylvia Hopp, who stood behind her nurse. Rather than remove the machines, the humbled vendors returned with an offer to replace soft drinks with healthier alternatives, such as 100 percent juice drinks and trail mix.

"If you have a supportive administrator, changes can happen," said Rodriguez.

She also had to get the teachers to buy in. She asked them to be role models and not eat or drink junk food in front of the kids.

"I turned a lot of teachers into closet eaters," she jokes.

Eventually, the snack machines were removed entirely and replaced with fresh fruit prepared daily by food service staff. Slices of cantaloupe, honeydew and other items were topped off with a little bit of lemon and chili powder and placed in plastic bags for sale. It was a hit with the kids.

"Now you have elementary schoolchildren asking their parents for 50 cents so they can buy a fresh fruit snack at school," said Rodriguez.

The healthy eating habits are so ingrained now, a teacher recently told Rodriguez, that a student who sneaked off to a vending machine during a field trip chose a fruit snack when all the usual unhealthy options were available.

Knowing that exercise is also part of a healthy lifestyle, Rodriguez took the initiative once again. She measured the length of the sidewalk surrounding her school and calculated that four circuits equaled a mile. Because there are no formal exercise facilities or trails in the community, Rodriguez decided to make the school "trail" a focal point of community health and set up a half-dozen exercise stations along the route.

She introduced the trail to the community with a mini health fair that featured healthy snack-tasting booths with recipes available, displays by cancer and diabetes associations, and people dressed up as fruits and vegetables. She even managed to combine reading and a healthy diet by suggesting that parents prepare a snack of ants-on-a-log (celery, peanut butter and raisins) and then read a storybook about ants to their child.

"It went really well," she said.

Her initiative is now in its fourth year, said Rodriguez, and "people have embraced it and taken some ownership."

Always looking for ways to improve the program, this year she decided to let the kids do the teaching.

She formed a health club that encourages students to reinforce the school's healthy lifestyle message. Students do everything from maintaining the walking trail to presenting a "Healthy Tip of the Week" on the school`s television network.

Thanks to the success at Borrego Elementary, Rodriquez's ideas have spread to other campuses in the district. And there is evidence that her efforts are also having an impact on reducing the incidence of diabetes in the student population at Borrego. When she first started, 44 children had been referred for diabetes testing after pre-screening. This year there were 22.

All of that has come as a result of Rodriguez's dogged commitment to her goals. In fact, her zeal for carefully monitoring the eating habits of her students has earned her the nickname "Food Patrol." A few years ago, the staff gave her a gold star with the word "Sheriff" etched on it.

"Somebody has to take the lead, and somebody has to take the heat that comes with it," said Rodriguez, "and I'm it."