Schools should be allowed to sell a wide variety of foods ranging from healthy to unhealthy, but new nutritional standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture prevents this from happening. The “Smart Snacks in School” program, which took effect last year on July 1 at all schools in the national school lunch program, introduced restrictions on the foods not only sold in school lunches, but also in vending machines and fundraisers taking place during the school day. Among the many restrictions are limits on calorie count, sodium levels, and fat percentage (“Smart Snacks in School”). This program, in collaboration with First Lady Michelle Obama, is said to be devoted to lowering the rates of youth obesity. However, Pamela Paulsen, the fundraising chairwoman for Wheaton Warrenville School District 200, does not agree. Upon mentioning how the rules are only effective during the school day, she stated, “I don’t see it as a good policy at all. Childhood obesity isn’t what happens between 7 and 3” (“New school nutrition guidelines”). …show more content…
Schools should not be parenting their kids; parents should be parenting their kids. It should not fall under a school district’s responsibility to restrict a child’s diet. Granted, there are parents who are not involved in their child’s life and there are parents who don’t think much about the importance of living a healthy lifestyle, but there are also parents who encourage their child to learn how to make healthy decisions without the help of others. A school should know when it needs to get involved in family matters, but it should also be cautious to not overstep the mark and understand when it needs to back
Schools are meant to give our children a healthy and nurturing environment, and yet so much of the lunches in schools are fattening; does this stop schools from achieving the aforementioned goal? Childhood obesity in the United Sates continues to be a growing problem despite so any new programs to help combat it, and new research is showing how schools may be playing a large role in childhood obesity. School lunches are showing to be the problem, they encourage poor nutrition in our nation’s students, and simple reform is proving to not be enough to stop the rise in obesity rates.
Michael Pollan makes arguments concerning the eating habits of the average American. Pollan suggests, in spite of our cultural norms, we should simply “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”
It is apparent that living an unhealthy lifestyle, as well as eating poorly, negatively affects one’s health. From a young age it is quickly learned which foods are considered healthful as opposed to junk food. It is a parents responsibility to supervise the intake of their child's food, however there is a higher risk than ever before of childhood obesity.
Soda’s are leaving vending machines and being be substituted with less-sugary drinks, bread is being substituted for whole wheat and milk is being substituted to fat free milk. First Lady Michelle Obama took it into her own hands to provide the United states children with food that meets nutritional standards. “Through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by the First Lady and signed by President Obama, USDA made the first major changes in school meals in 15 years, which will help us raise a healthier generation of children.” (Leonard). Healthy Hunger- Free Act went into effect in 2012 some of the changes were that meals needed 5 components: grain, meat, fruit, vegetable, and milk. Students MUST take at least 1/2 cup of fruit OR vegetable for a meal.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years,” meaning that America’s children need to start eating healthier, including healthier school lunches. The National School Lunch Act is a fairly recent addition to American society. For, as the world waged war a second time, the United States began to worry about the strength and health of the country’s soldiers. However, in the beginning, selling excess agricultural goods was more important than building a healthy, well-balanced meal for students. Unfortunately, many children coming from poorer families could not afford well-balanced school lunches, so in order to compensate, the School Lunch Program changed its focus to help these students. This program, however, decreased schools’ lunch budgets, and schools had a hard time keeping up with the amount of free meals they had to provide, so they came up with some extra ways to increase revenue. However, in a small town in Massachusetts, one chef makes a difference in the health of the school lunch students eat each day, and proves that hiring a trained chef to cook real, healthy meals can increase profit. Unfortunately, that is not the case in most schools across the nation. The quality of health of the food being served in school lunches is extremely poor and was allowed to decline even more with a new set of rule changes. However, there are some improvements currently being made to increase the quality of health of the food being served to students, including teaching them all about food and its nutritional information, both good and bad. In order for students to eat healthier lunches at school, the USDA needs to implement healthier ...
The new standards given to school districts to follow and oblige to have swiftly changed after the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was passed making it healthier for students to eat both breakfast and lunch. This article mentioned certain limitations that many schools had to officially make on what they had to serve their students as well as the costs of these changes. Certain limitations included certain amount of fruits and vegetables, fat-free milk, replacement of whole grains, and they had to set limits on the amount of calories and sodium in their foods.
As an average American student walks down the lunch line they might see whole-grain bread or noodles being tossed on their plate. “Who would want to eat this?” A common question asked by the student when they encounter the reduced calorie meal. Believe it or not, the changes, no matter how unappetizing they may be, were made in interest of the health children across the nation. After her husband was elected President of the United States, Michelle Obama took initiative of her own and started a campaign called “Let’s Move!” The campaign was developed to put a stop to childhood obesity through exercise and nutrition. Besides endorsing exercise to the children of America through commercials and advertisements, this movement included new guidelines that schools across the nation had to follow. This caused controversy between the students and schools and the government that will be covered throughout the essay. This paper is about Michelle Obama’s school lunch guidelines and how they are affecting schools and students across the nation.
Taber DR, Chriqui JF, Powell L, & Chaloupka FJ. (2013). Association between state laws governing school meal nutrition content and student weight status: Implications for new usda school meal standards. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(6), 513–519. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.399
Lunch is one of the most important meals of the day and is consumed mostly in school cafeterias for children and adolescence. Wholesome lunches are vital in maintaining a healthy metabolism and give children energy for the rest of the school day. Children are advised to eat healthily but do not always do so because the choices of tastier, fatty foods offered in school cafeterias. The National School Lunch Program, NSLP, which is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools set nutritious guidelines for lunches served in school cafeterias (USDA). However, school campuses still offer foods high in fat as well as selling candy, chips, and soda in their vending machines, as well as their school shops. In order
Nutritionism and Today’s Diet Nutritionism is the ideology that the nutritional value of a food is the sum of all its individual nutrients, vitamins, and other components. In the book, “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, he critiques scientists and government recommendations about their nutritional advice. Pollan presents a strong case pointing out the many flaws and problems that have risen over the years of following scientific studies and government related warnings on the proper amount of nutrients needed for a healthy diet. Pollan’s main point is introducing science into our food system has had more of a negative impact than a positive one, we should go back to eating more of a traditional diet. I believe food science has given us
In America itself only about two percent of kids eat a healthy diet. The topic I
The prevalence of childhood obesity in the U.S is at an all-time high with nearly one-third of all children and adolescents now considered overweight or obese (Ogden 2011). The argument as to whether or not schools should be able to sell junk food is a highly controversial topic. More than half the population in each school in the U.S purchases lunch from their school cafeteria. Also, many students in elementary schools don’t know the difference between the right and wrong thing to eat so they rely on their school to feed them. Sugar-filled snacks, sugary drinks, and snacks high in saturated fat are a favorite among children. In most cases, when faced with the decision, a child will no doubt choose a bag of chips over an apple.
Processed food should be banned from school meals due to increasing health issues in children, increasing academic deficiency and increasing production cost to produce processed foods. There are people who would oppose to this idea due to population growth and an increasing food demand. However, this escalating demand of food is forcing the food industry and other government agencies to resolve the current hunger and lack of resources issues, by hiring processing factories and private companies to manufacture processed foods. The greater part of school age children consume processed foods on a daily basis.
Ban Junk Food Junk food. Is it the responsibility of schools to ban junk food and promote a healthy lifestyle for children of all ages between 6-18? Yes, yes it is. In my opinion, schools promoting a healthy lifestyle is as important as the children’s parents’ responsibility. Schools have as much impact in that department as children are fed during school hours.
I want to investigate how schools and parents can work together to support healthy eating for young children. Many schools already have healthy eating initiatives in place, however, there is still a high percentage of children with obesity. I firmly believe that if schools and parents have a close partnership in promoting healthy eating young children will have consistency both in the school and home environment. Healthy eating is an area that I feel passionate about due to the effects poor nutrition can have on the child both in the short term and in the long term. During my second school placement, I witnessed a healthy eating initiative that was extremely successful both with the staff and the students. This has influenced my enthusiasm to promote healthy eating in the early years by including parents in order to combat the serious issue of childhood