Overview of the Healthy Food for Healthy School Act

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It was lunch time and students walked into the cafeteria to purchase lunch. A wide variety of food was placed in front of them to choose from ranging from pizza to burgers to bags of chips and chocolate bars. Their choices were endless up until a new reform took over and enlisted new changes. The Healthy Food for Healthy School Act was placed on September 1st, 2008. Its policy entailed schools to practice healthy eating where they would be “dropping trans fat from food and beverages sold in schools and establishing mandatory nutrition standards for food and beverages sold in schools” (Ontario Ministry of Education). While this reform plays a significant role in the health of students, it also has a great impact on other sectors.
Healthy foods and having a healthy lifestyle, for students in particular, plays an essential role for their learning and everyday life. Research shows that children who do not acquire the right amount of nutrition are “'particularly susceptible to the moment‐to‐moment metabolic changes that impact upon cognitive ability and performance of the brain” (School Meal and School Nutrition Program Handbook). As described on the ministry website, poor diets lead to the lack of motivation and attentiveness and influences the students learning. With an ongoing unhealthy lifestyle, children may “have lifestyle habits that could put them in the fast lane for developing cardiovascular disease as early as their 30s” (Ontario Ministry of Education). This reform plays a significant role for students as they are learning to eat healthy especially if its context is embedded within the curriculum to further enhance the purpose of the reform to portray it through different means.
While the implementation of the ref...

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Food: How School Food Affects Student Health. (2008.).Center for Environmental
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Molnar, A. & Garcia, D. (2006). The battle over commercialized schools. Educational
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Ontario Ministry of Education. (2005). Healthy Schools: Healthy Food for Healthy
Schools Act Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/healthyschools/lifestyle.html SCHOOL MEAL AND SCHOOL NUTRITION PROGRAM HANDBOOK. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/communitylink/pdf/smph.pdf

Svastisalee, C., Holstein, B., & Due, P. (2012). Fruit and Vegetable Intake in Adolescents:
Association with Socioeconomic Status and Exposure to Supermarkets and Fast
Food Outlets.Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, 2012. Retrieved from
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnme/2012/18548

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