Introduction-Thesis Draft Childhood obesity epidemic, one of the most detrimental disorders, has maximized social and economical challenges faced by Americans in the 21st century. The United States of America has been always placed in the top-10 most obese countries, a list not be so proud about. Poor dietary habits at school due to consumption of competitive, unhealthy foods have resulted in escalating obesity thereby influencing a student’s performance in and outside school. As a major problem’s solution lies within finding its root, schools with the aid of governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and institutions, have started to provide valid solutions in an attempt to reverse this epidemic. For instance one major attempt, by the Center of Disease Control (CDC) and the State Board of Education, to alleviate this problem in schools was the introduction of ‘sin-tax’. Schools’ taxed students on purchasing sugar-sweetened beverages but that was not quite successful, as it did not stop the affluent students to purchase high calorific beverages and only targeted students with a low socio-economic background. Thus, the most influential solution implemented by these governmental organizations’ that is responsible for decreasing childhood obesity by quite a large factor is improving school meals by increasing the nutrition standard. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken mandatory mediation steps that involve eliminating the sales of competitive fast food and increasing the supply of high organic nutritious food that meets the USDA requirement thereby improving the nutrition standard. I believe schools, with the intervention of governmental agencies like the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment (SND... ... middle of paper ... ...on: Creating School Environments And Policies To Promote Healthy Eating And Physical Activity." Milbank Quarterly 87.1 (2009): 71-100. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Feb. 2014 Townsend, Nick, Simon Murphy, and Laurence Moore. "The More Schools Do To Promote Healthy Eating, The Healthier The Dietary Choices By Students." Journal Of Epidemiology & Community Health 65.10 (2011): 889-895. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Feb. 2014. Wharton, Christopher M., Michael Long, and Marlene B. Schwartz. "Changing Nutrition Standards In Schools: The Emerging Impact On School Revenue." Journal Of School Health 78.5 (2008): 245-251. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Feb. 2014. Wilde, Parke, and Mary Kennedy. "The Economics Of A Healthy School Meal." Choices: The Magazine Of Food, Farm & Resource Issues 24.3 (2009): 25-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
From Kindergarten to 12th grade, children spend most of their time at school. School, what we adults think, is supposed to be the teachers of our children while we are at work. They feed them lunch, and possibly breakfast, five days out the week, keep them active, and teach them all about their body and health in health class. But, are they really taking care of them enough? Some schools fail to serve healthy foods, teach health class, or even provide enough time to be physically active. One in three kids are obese, that is reason enough to care about these children’s lives at school. Schools are one of the reasons that the younger generation has a fast growing obese rate.
"All Food Sales in Schools Should Offer Healthier Options." Should Junk Food Be Sold in Schools? Ed. Norah Piehl. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. At Issue. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.
Government date shows that in the past thirty years, rate of being overweight in six to eleven year olds is up 19% and 6% in age 12 to 19. Without support, school lunches remain high in fat. (Finkelstien) According to the CDCP, obesity is double what it was in children and triple in adolescents since 1980. Many reforms were attempted to help this problem, but many inadvertently caused more problems. (Finkelstien) A 730 calorie lunch should have no more than 24 grams of fat and no more than 8 grams of it saturated yet the average USDA lunch has 31 grams of fat and 14 rams of it is saturated. (Yeoman) These very high levels of fat are why obesity is becoming worse in children. It can be concluded that school food is still extremely high in fat and this can be directly linked to the high rates of obesity in young children and
“More than 76 percent of schools sell soft drinks and sweetened fruit drinks, but fewer than half offered bottles water. Fewer than 15 percent sell low-fat or nonfat yogurt, and fewer than one third order skim milk. Only 25 percent of schools say they've reduced fats and oils in recipes.”(Spake, 2). Choices at lunch range from greasy to unidentifiable. Most students eat school lunches five days a week. So most of the food they eat throughout the week comes from the school cafeteria. Although, the schools do tend to offer healthy choices such as salads, subs, skim milk, and unlimited fruits and vegetables. “Each week Phoenix students are served a variety of fruits and vegetables from guava to grapes and jicima to red peppers. School officials hope that by exposing children to fruits and vegetable they may develop a taste for them and request their parents to buy them.”(Bailey, 1). Real meat is becoming an issue in schools. “According to reports issued by the Physicians Committee for responsible Medicine (PCRM) the USDA dumps hundreds of millions of pounds of surplus beef, chicken, cheese, and pork on the National School lunch Program.”(Lord, 42). Chicken isn't whole white meat; some of it doesn't even taste like meat! Let’s move on to unhealthy foods. There are unlimited amounts of un...
Education plays a dominant role in the lives of students throughout the United States. Since most students spend roughly eight to twelve hours in school, it is important to make sure that they are provided with a healthy and nutritious breakfast, lunch and snack. Unfortunately, in today’s society, school administrators focus heavily on standardized test scores and school rankings, thus adding more pressure on students and teachers. This being said, schools have begun to focus on providing healthy foods because they help increase a person’s cognitive and critical thinking ability. It is seen that nutrition plays a great role in students’ performance on exams and physical activity due to the correlation between school provided meals and low student performance on tests.
“New School lunch standards implemented as a result of First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign have led to more than 1 million children leaving the lunch line, according to a new report.” (Elizabeth Harrington 3). Because of The Healthy and Hunger-Free Kids Act “ New meals are required to offer a whole grain,protein,fat free or low fat milk, fruits and vegetables”(Arit John 10). Even if the government regulates school lunches to prevent obesity and diabetes, the government should not be able to regulate them because students are not happy with the new school nutrition requirements, schools should be responsible for providing a nutritious lunch children will eat.
Do you ever walk into the cafeteria and see overweight kids drinking sugary drinks and eating unhealthy food? You may think some kids brought this type of food in from home. Some do, but others get that so called “junk food” from your own school cafeteria. Many people believe this statement and are trying to get schools to remove those types of food from the school. School’s take a major part in child obesity with the food they serve in their cafeterias.
Williamson, D. A., Han, H., Johnson, W. D., Martin, C. K., & Newton, R. L. (2013). Modification of the school cafeteria environment can impact childhood nutrition. Results from the Wise Mind and LA Health studies. Appetite, 61, 77–84. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2012.11.002
Low-cost meals are not worth the price of the medical bills that are promised to come and it is still very possible for schools to distribute nutritional lunches for an affordable price. It is necessary for legislation to make the change. Furthermore, it is ridiculous that emotional disorder numbers among adolescents have skyrocketed due to the lack body image, which is highly influenced by the way the eat. Therefore, it should be encouraged for schools to improve their meals, but that is only going to be achieved if a series are strict laws are placed, limiting calorie, sugar, fat, carbohydrate, pesticide, and other chemical intake. Lastly, Americans have always focused on exams and performance in a classroom environment, but they ignore the fact that what students eat, highly influence their performance. Ergo, increased meal funds would only benefit different school systems, through increased academic accomplishment rates. Although it is a grueling process to pass new regulations, it is vital for all students that school meals be improved in order to protect their physical and mental
"School Meals Need to Get Healthier: Report." Healthday. 29 OCT 2009: n. page. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
Also, according to “Healthy Day Consumer News,” schools and parents should be working together to improve the school nutrition, In other words, the teachers and parents should teach the kids about living a healthy lifestyle. Many parents and faculty members believe that schools should have improvements in the systems for healthy food. According to the article, “Why are schools selling junk foods to kids” it states American students suffering over obesity in schools. In other words, reasons for the obesities is because of vending machines and junk food on campuses. Having junk food is a win-win situation because we, the students get to eat the junk food, and the school is getting money to fund the school. According to “Prevention Institute,” kids get up to 50% of their total caloric intake at school, making the school environment a critical venue for promoting and supporting healthy eating. In other words, having the sugary snacks and unhealthy beverages around students at schools, encourages students to eat it often. Although junk food is available at most schools, one should not take advantage of it and eat it on a daily
The amount of people with obesity has multiplied since the 1970s. ¨the percentage of children with obesity in the united states has more than tripled since the 1970s. Today about one in five school-aged children has obesity¨ (¨Childhood¨). School lunches need to be more healthier to help the rate of obesity, of school-aged kids, decrease. The amount of calories a day a child should consume is about 2,200 calories, which is just about two times larger than an average school lunch. ¨The average school lunch has about 900 calories, which is about half of the amount of total calories a child should consume daily. Many schools attempt to serve healthy lunches for students, but sometimes they are not aware of what ¨healthy¨ is¨ (¨Childhood¨). Schools do not have enough nutrients in their lunches to be known as a healthy lunch. ¨Nutrition is important, it helps our bodies and brains grow and develop into the way that they are supposed to, Schools claim that they offer the nutrients in foods, but according to an online study 15 percent of 13-15 year old girls are obese and 14 percent of 13-15 year old boys are obese and schools can be at blame for that¨ (¨Reduce¨). Schools should take action on making sure that their students get a healthy lunch while at school, and that is free from trans and saturated
Childhood Obesity is on the rise in the United States. According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, “childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The prevalence of obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008[…] adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0% to 18.1%.” (CDC 2010) Parents have started to file complaints with school districts and state representatives about the lack of attention this issue is receiving. There have been several references to the school lunch program and the lack of physical activity that children are provided during the school day. On the other side, some parents believe that the government should not be involved and does not have the right to tell the students what they should or should not eat. These parents argue that it should be left in the hands of the school board to determine the nutritional guidelines for their school lunch program and the amount of daily physical activity that children are given. Parents should not be opposed to tighter government restrictions on what can and cannot be served to students in schools, or mandates of increased physical activity, because these reforms will help decrease the strain on the health care system that the childhood obesity epidemic is starting to create.
Educational institutions have the potential to, first and foremost, educate and assist the young people of today with making the positive, healthful choices necessary to maintain good health. Over 4,500 students have been followed in recent research studies and these “thousands of sixth graders who participated in a school-based health program were less obese by eighth grade than a group of similar children who did not, according to a new study done for the National Institutes of Health” (Rabin). Schools need to create health programs focused on assisting all children suffering from being overweight or obese. Policies such as fitness programs, nutrition classes, and healthful meals can even impact every student by creating a strong foundation and awareness of the negative, long term effects associated with practicing unhealthy habits. Although the financial expenses would be necessary, the adaption of scho...
The obesity epidemic is a major problem in today’s society. It ranges for children to teens, all the way to adult that are affected. The problem needs to addressed and it starts with the basics of eating healthy. In many school today, the food served is processed and it offers little benefit to student, especially if they are not exercising and practicing healthy habits. One way to help stop the obesity epidemic in our community is start in the schools, and improve students eating habits. If the food was less processed, made at the cafeteria, and something that students would look forward to eating, rather than skipping lunch then the increase in obesity may be stopped.