From the time they were in elementary school, students have heard about the importance of nutrition. Although they have been taught the value of a balanced, healthy diet, students continue to ignore the recommendations given to them and even complain about the steps that the school administration takes to improve the nutritional quality of the foods within the cafeteria. While the students may not realize it, obesity in children and teenagers has been steadily increasing, and schools nationwide are taking action to combat this epidemic (Rutledge 1). Schools should continue providing healthy foods on the lunch menu, as well as in the vending machines.
The growing problem of child obesity is one of the main factors contributing to the promotion of better nutrition in schools. One in six children, 16 percent, from the ages 10 to 17 are considered to be obese (Afterschool, Alliance, and Foundation MetLife 1). Although there are determined efforts to educate children on healthy eating habits, “levels of obesity continue to rise” (Bullen 51). There are four times as many children showing signs of obesity than there were twenty years ago. With all of the other concerns students deal with, “obesity should not be among the many obstacles . . . children face today” (Hunt). Along with their increase in weight and body fat comes a plethora of problems that children have not ever had to deal with. Once known as adult onset diabetes, type 2 diabetes is becoming increasingly common in adolescents, especially in minorities (Afterschool, Alliance, and Foundation MetLife 1). Not only is type 2 diabetes becoming an issue, but also overweight and obese children and adolescents are facing high
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Rutledge, Teresa F., and (DHHS/PHS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "School Health Guidelines to Promote Healthy Eating and Physical Activity. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Recommendations and Reports. Volume 60, Number 5." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011): ERIC. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.
Snelling, Anastasia M., and Teha Kennard,. "The Impact Of Nutrition Standards On Competitive Food Offerings And Purchasing Behaviors Of High School Students." Journal Of School Health 79.11 (2009): 541-546. Professional Development Collection. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.
Story, Mary, Karen M. Kaphingst, and Simone French. "The Role Of Schools In Obesity Prevention." Future Of Children 16.1 (2006): 109-142. ERIC. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.
US Department of, Agriculture. "National School Lunch Program." US Department Of Agriculture (2009): ERIC. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
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.
The Encyclopedia Britannica emphasizes the increasing significance of the epidemic of childhood obesity and its complex biological, social, and health in today’s American Children with just increases year over year since the early nineteen eighties from just fewer than twenty percent from the adolescent and childhood life stages into adult transition. {Britannica} One out of every three children in the U.S. are obese, with the majority facing higher risks of developing medical, social and academic problems as a result of this health crisis. Over the past ten years, the United States rates of obesity in children have been on a steady incline. Various public health problems like obesity paired with attempted solutions to its consequences dating back years but hidden by all with differing views on exploring certain areas of life experiences. Parents’ early interventions with proper training slow the disease increase trend. The Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health asserts the prevalence of early diagnosis and treatment in children will help improve transitional health into adulthood by encouraging main factors in adult health complications when a cycle of weight loss followed by weight gain begins. {Gale} Parents are not provided enough conventionally accessible education to support children in prevention of the disease. We need to focus our efforts on teaching children how to lead consistent and healthy lives and eradicate this excessive weight disease by an overall healthy lifestyles starting with parents, by setting the groundwork for culture principals while providing guidance which will lead to healthy weight development into the adolescent and latter adult years. The CDC estimates studies show kids before school age ar...
Childhood obesity has been on the rise in the last couple of years. In the 1970’s childhood obesity was never a concern to the public until the number increased over the years. An alarming rate of 31% of all adults have been obese since they were children and the rates of childhood obesity don’t fall too behind with an 18% of children being obese. That makes almost half of obese adults and children. A child that is obese has a 70-80% higher chance of staying obese even through their adulthood if no action is taken. Childhood obesity is not something children are in control of, these children suffer from different outcomes since they can’t look after themselves and heavily rely on someone to aid them when they need it. These numbers can be drastically altered in a positive way by educating both children and parents about healthy, nutritious foods to consume, supplying schools with better lunch and healthier vending machines with healthy choices and promoting after school activities to keep children active and away from electronics.
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.
There is an alarming rise in childhood obesity throughout the United States, making it an epidemic in our country. Obesity has become a threat to the health of many children. Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period.(Childhood Obesity Facts, 2015)
“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...
Obesity in children across America has become an increasing public health concern. Obesity has been identified as an epidemic that is plaguing our children in the United States. In some countries around the world children are dying of starvation everyday. How can this happen when here in America the opposite is a major problem? This is not to say that in America there are no hungry or starving children. It has been proven that our children suffer from obesity, and “children who are overweight or obese as preschoolers are five times as likely as normal-weight children to be overweight or obese as adults” (“Hope”). Obesity not only can cause a child to become more prone to having health problems down the road, but it can also make them feel insecure about themselves. There needs to be action taken in schools as well as in homes to help prevent this growing epidemic.
Elissa, Jelallian and Steele, Ric. “Handbook of Childhood and Adolescent Obesity”. New York, NY: SpringeScience+Business Media, c2008.Print.
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 ...
United States Department of Agriculture. "School Meals." Child Nutrition Programs. USDA, 23 Dec. 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
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
Moreover, the controversy over cafeteria food is whether or not it is healthy for all students from elementary schools to colleges. Numerous factors lead to unhealthy eating in schools and on campuses. Sometimes options with better nutrition are offered, but when there are, they tend to be less appealing than the unhealthy foods which turns to obesity. Many schools are undergoing budget cuts and changes, and healthy food tends to take a back burner when deciding where the limited amounts of money should go (Gupta). Unfortunately, when schools do have healthy ingredients, the food is usually prep...
Institute of Medicine. (n.d.). Retrieved Jan 10, 2011, from Childhood Obesity Prevention Actions for Local Government: www.iom.edu/Activities/Childhood/LocalObesPrevention.asp
Have you ever tasted school cafeteria food? I don’t think you would want to. In school story books, do you have characters saying that the food tasted good at school cafeterias? Nope. Why is this? Cafeteria food is often cheap, bought in bulk, high in calories, malnutritious, and microwaved. Student polls and opinions prove this. Therefore, this leads to a suggestion: Healthier, tastier foods and a better, advanced lunch system should be implemented.
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...