Garden: An Evaluative Review Of The Benefits Of School Garden By Dorothy Blair

According to an article entitled, The Child in the Garden: An Evaluative Review of the Benefits of School Gardens, by Dorothy Blair, “Anonymous prepackaged food arrives at supermarkets from energy-intensive, polluting, and often obesity-promoting industrial food-manufacturing systems.” This is the main reason that I am interested in food based education programs because I am a mother of three school aged children and as a mom it is difficult for me to encourage healthy eating habits when everything is against me. Television commercials are constantly advertising sugary foods, radios promote candy, and grocery stores encourage more candy sales at checkout lines. On top of that they are packaged in a way that is appealing to young children. For example, I was at the grocery store and saw a box of cereal with the characters of Frozen as did my daughter. Since Frozen is my daughter’s favorite movie she wanted me to buy it for her. I looked at the nutrition content and it was just another sugary cereal. As a mother this is a hard decision because I know the only reason she wants it is because of the packaging. If I say no than she becomes upset and if I say yes than I am not providing healthy food choices. This is the

As a mother of three school aged children and majoring in health care management, I would definitely try my best to influence this area. I volunteer in my children’s classrooms and see the growing problem with childhood obesity. Whenever there is a school party there is an abundance of cookies, candy, juice, etc. and very rarely is there any fruit or vegetables. This growing trend of childhood obesity needs to stop. We need to reprogram ourselves and put a social value on healthy foods so that we can prevent obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Healthy nutrition is the answer to these problems and as a society we need to effort and value into our children’s