Importance and Relevance of School Children Feeding on Education
This session evaluates the importance and relevance of school children feeding program on education with the lens of who is in the best position to implement such policy. As a method to support underprivileged children gets enough food to eat while motivating them to be in school, school children feeding program have been embraced by Policymakers and development organizations over the decades. It is worthy to note that the programs are not peculiar to developing countries. Developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom began implementing school feeding programs in the 19th century and still use them today for poor children (World Bank 2012) . The acceptance of these programs in many countries has led to a series of debates and questions about the effectiveness of these programs. Many have raised fundamental questions if the school children programs really increase enrolment and if so, what are the quality and the nutritional value of the food that the programs offer. Without a doubt, a suitable lunch can ward off starvation, but is it sufficient to cover for several years of nutritional deficiency? Children who aren’t hungry can focus better in school—does this mean they will do better in their classes?
But before we evaluate the importance of the program, it is imperative to first understand what School feeding is. Quite a number of scholars have defined the term “school feeding”, but for the purpose of this essay, I will define school feeding in line with the World Food Program report of 2004 which state that, “school feeding is a tool which today effectively enables hundreds of millions of poor children worldwide to attend school—in develop...
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...ding in urban settings often take a packed lunch according to what is available in their homes. On the contrary, in the rural areas schools provide all meals at school in which the parents pay fees for every term. (GCNF, 2006: 3-5). In a similar argument, Acham and colleagues maintained that school feeding program apparently have an impact on the increase in school participation rather than regular attendance in Uganda. Even though there are more than 8 million children attending primary school, many parents, in particular, the rural areas cannot afford to pay even the minimal cost of a daily meal of maize porridge “Several factors including food insecurity, poverty, distance between home and school and lack of commitment make the parents involved unable to provide meals for their children, which is the cause of irregular school attendance” (Acham et al., 2012:2).
Lunch time is a time to take a break from the day and recharge for the rest of the day. In elementary schools it is also a time to meet up with your friends and socialize. Lunch time is not only time to eat. It is important for the mental, social, and emotional health of the children as well. Children need them chance to unwind and destress, which is promoted by socializing with friends. “Lunch should be an enjoyable part of the school day for students, offering a break from classroom work and a place to relax, socialize, and become nourished.”("The Cafeteria: Creating a Positive Mealtime Experience", 2013) Lunch time should be done in a setting where
In Anna Quindlen’s essay, “School’s Out for Summer” she identifies a more unknown or even suppressed problem within America; child hunger. Throughout this essay her use of resources and information gives readers insight into a problem maybe they hadn’t known existed here in America. Quindlen gives many great facts and really gives a reality check that this is a problem that needs to be stopped. “That’s right. In
...nd usually the institutions and churches do not have the resources to provide a safety net for starving people. What we have found when working with the World Bank is that the poor man's safety net, the best investment, is school feeding. And if you fill the cup with local agriculture from small farmers, you have a transformative effect. Many kids in the world can't go to school because they have to go beg and find a meal. But when that food is there, it's transformative. It costs less than 25 cents a day to change a kid's life.” (Sheeran)
Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues. In providing help to people who find themselves in food insecure households, people can be found who are skeptical of their true need. One of the biggest myths of the disadvantaged is that they have poor shopping habits or shop in convenience stores where prices are extremely high compared to those in grocery stores. Another myth is that in America, the land of plenty, those that cannot afford food are lazy or cheats.... ...
"Hunger and Malnutrition." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's Health. Ed. Mary L. Gavin. The Nemours Foundation, 01 May 2012. Web. 12 May 2014.
In conclusion, hunger is a constant, chronic pain distressing many children. Famished children should have become a thing of the past a long time ago. The thought may seem impossible, but the world produces enough food to feed everyone. In the world as a whole, per capita food availability has risen from about 2220 kcal/person/day in the early 1960s to 2790 kcal/person/day in 2006-08, while developing countries also recorded a leap (2015 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and
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 ...
Hunger is a big complication for economically impoverished people because without money no food can be bought. “Estacado High School principal Sam Ayers recalls getting regular visits an average of two days a week from a hungry student” (Gulick 1). Being hungry can cause the loss of concentration at school and make your grades drop. Gulick explains how concentration is lost by the hungry kids “Regardless of age, if you are hungry, it is hard to concentrate on the teaching and learning going on in the classroom” (1). Less concentration causes lower grades for the economically handicapped students says Gulicks report from school districts ”It follows that districts and campuses with higher percentages of economically deprived students are more likely to have lower test scores” (5). The student’s grades are low because buying books and going to the library is an extra expense. Because the books are an extra expense...
With the implementation of the “Healthy Kids Hunger-Free Act” schools are not serving as many lunches and participation is decreasing. According to the Government Accountability Office (GOA), “Nationwide, student participation declined by 1.2 million students(or 3.7 percent) from school year 2010-2011 through school year 2012-2013, after having increased steadily for many years”(sec. 1). The school lunches became more distasteful and bland; the combinations of foods did not make sense, and the portion sizes decreased significantly. In order to support the cafeteria
Chronic food shortages are widespread, and malnutrition levels among young children are high. These statistics are slightly higher in rural as opposed to urban areas.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Many of these children only get a full meal while having their school lunch, so many of these children go hungry the rest of the day.
Even though there is such a large food production in India and they are one of the world’s largest food exporters, still so many go hungry. India’s economy has boomed in the past decades, creating an even larger gap between rich and poor.Even though their middle and upper class outnumber their poor, the population is so large that the amount of people below the poverty line is unprecedented. Malnutrition of the poor is India’s largest downfall in the area of food security and nutrition. It is more common for undernutrition to occur in rural areas of India, but it even happens in cities. According to Unicef, out of the 20% of children worldwide that are “wasting” (a person or a part of the body becoming progressively weaker and more emaciated), over one third are Indian citizens. If just regarding children under the age of five years old, 43% are underweight, and 48% (or 61 million children) have stunted growth due to malnutrition. Lack of education is a large contributor to the vast disparity of nutritional security. Children whose mothers have less than 12 years of school education are five times more likely to be
Food insecurity and poor nutrition is an alarmingly large problem for low income families, especially in developing countries. Many strategies exist to fight this problem, although not many of these address all the factors contributing to it along with all the possible solutions to solve it. In many cases, multiple strategies must correlate and work together so that all the determinants of this issue are addressed and can fight food insecurity from different angles. This essay will discuss the significance of the problem, a range of possible strategies to solve the problem, and go into detail on a select few that will correlate and work together to solve different factors of food insecurity and poor nutrition.
A dusty, one-room schoolhouse on the edge of a village. An overworked teacher trying to manage a room full of boisterous children. Students sharing schoolbooks that are in perpetual short supply, crammed in rows of battered desks. Children worn out after long treks to school, stomachs rumbling with hunger. Others who vanish for weeks on end, helping their parents with the year-end harvest. Still others who never come back, lacking the money to pay for school uniforms and school supplies. Such is the daily dilemma faced by many young people in the developing world as they seek to obtain that most precious of all commodities, an education.
In many countries with high levels of poverty, universal healthcare is a myth and quality healthcare is often a reserve for the financially endowed. Because of this, the poor are forced to contend with below par healthcare services, which are still comparatively expensive. The inability to access regular and balanced meals often results in poor health among individuals in this populace, with chronic illnesses being very common (Hickey & du Toit, 2013). Unfortunately, the same can be said of education. Many children in poverty stricken areas often drop out of school at early ages to seek employment. This is often driven by the need for every member of the household to contribute towards family expenses (Hatcher, 2016; Yoshikawa, Aber, & Beardslee, 2012). As a result, these children do not enjoy the benefits of proper education, which often results in many of these children still living within the same poverty brackets as their