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Recommended: Essay of school food
In America itself only about two percent of kids eat a healthy diet. The topic I selected is if changes should be made to the regulation for food being served in public schools. I say yes, the school food menus should be changed in all public schools. The main reason I selected this article is because America is unhealthy in general and obesity is on the rise mainly due to the fact of unhealthy food. Also I went to public schools for over a decade and have seen the unhealthy food that is being served. Today a kid is more likely to be obese or have diabetes before finishing high school, which is largely in part of what they eat. Changing the public food system takes a lot of encouragement from the USDA, congress, staff members, …show more content…
The history of and the status of having the school food menus is a long and lengthy issue. The National School lunch program (NSLP) started in 1946 by President Harry Truman to safeguard the health and well being of the children. NSLP serves over 30 million and spends over 8 billion, which makes it a big contributor. The main issue is the rise in being overweight or having obesity, and also the issue of quality of food being served at schools (Ralston, k.r (2008) the national lunch program). The main issue is if food is nutritious enough, and NSLP is connected to not having enough nutrients in their food. This lead to many states, implying for more nutrient filled meals and beverages that meet the school guidelines. All schools have a certain amount they can spend because of the budget plan they have. So changes can’t be made instantly, but have to be voted on by Congress. The main thing that has to address is how they improve the quality of their Assignment 4 food so it can fit school budgets. Also, we have to find a way to get health information to the children so they improve their lifestyle …show more content…
Nothing too hard for a child to handle, it is all for the ultimate goal to prevent them from being overweight. If changes are made to the school lunches for children, it can help prevent them from being obese. (Martin, Greenleaf, JUDD,& CHAMBLISS) says “It is estimated that about one fourth (22%) of children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or Assignment 4 obese and future obesity prevalence rates are expected to rise to 40% by 2020” that number is just going to grow, if noting is implemented. The elimination of junk foods such as chips, deserts, and very high in sugar food should not be served in school cafeterias, and there should be a limitation on use of vending machines to after school hours use only. Also schools should implement on using more whole-wheat grain and add more vegetables. The small things count, and getting an exceptional amount of nutrient from school lunches is part of this advantage. Grains in bread and vegetables like carrots and peas can give a boost full of energy with protein and fiber to a child to help boost them through the
because us kids are the new generation. We need to lower the amount of sodium, fat and processed food that is being served.
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.
We cannot have a school lunch reform where the needs of all students are not met. If only some, or less than the majority, of students are receiving the nutritional values they need, we need to adapt the reform to further achieve better standards for school lunch programs. For example, after a student finishes their meal, schools could offer a second serving of protein to their students. In effect, this will add a higher amount of calories to the students’ daily diets.
The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act was passed in 2010 by Barack Obama, with support from Michelle Obama. This bill changed the way many cafeterias are running on a daily basis, both in budget and what (as well as how much) they are serving. To understand why some schools are struggling to fully thrive under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, it is important to know some basic statistics of this act and what they mean for schools. Amanda Paulson informs us about funding statistics of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, stating that the Federal Government endorsed “[a]n additional $4.5 billion over 10 years to child nutrition programs–the first time the federal government has increased funding for them in 30 years.” Paulson continues on by stating that schools receive a higher reimbursement rate than prior to this act being passed; in particular, schools now receive “[a] 6-cent increase to the $2.68 reimbursement rate that schools get from the federal government for free school meals.” Furthermore, Julie Kelly and Jeff Stier inform us that “[t]he Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act funds a number of child-nutrition programs including the National Schoo...
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 ...
States could require schools to serve healthier and more affordable meals than they currently are. They could have meals that all had the recommended amounts of grains, fruits, vegetables and protein for children. They could also ensure that it would be cheap for students to eat wh...
Education plays a dominant role in the lives of students throughout the United States. Since most students spend roughly eight to twelve hours in school, it is important to make sure that they are provided with a healthy and nutritious breakfast, lunch and snack. Unfortunately, in today’s society, school administrators focus heavily on standardized test scores and school rankings, thus adding more pressure on students and teachers. This being said, schools have begun to focus on providing healthy foods because they help increase a person’s cognitive and critical thinking ability. It is seen that nutrition plays a great role in students’ performance on exams and physical activity due to the correlation between school provided meals and low student performance on tests.
Unfortunately, obesity is a battle that the citizens of the United States are fighting. Over 68.8 percent of our adults have been diagnosed as being over-weight or obese, and this usually initiate in their teenage years (Overweight and Obesity Statistics). America ranks second in the world for the heaviest people (New York Post). Every year obesity is becoming an increasing problem in our nation and particularly in our schools. A huge factor is what we feed our students junk for breakfast and lunch.
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
News articles and internet blogs are saying that Americans are trying becoming more health conscious, but America ranks thirty-three in the healthies country. Bonnie Liebman, Sarah Federman, and Greg Crister are influential writer on the topic on food. They show the readers the freedom that food manufacturers have on labeling, and how it affects the consumers that fall for it. Bonnie Liebman, the author of “Claims Crazy: Which Can You Believe?” is a Director of Nutrition in CSPI. She has an M.S on nutritional sciences from Cornell University. Liebman provides links between health issues with food labeling. Her work talks about the different types of food labeling, and how the FDA fails to regulate on the structure/function claims that food
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
The lack of health standards for lunches and other foods in schools are a leading cause of obesity in children. According to studies, children who eat school lunches consume forty more calories each day compared to those who bring their own lunches (Schanzenbach 703). Elizabeth Jackson, a medical doctor at the University of Michigan Health System, reported that children who eat school lunches are over two times more likely to eat fattier foods and more sugary drinks (“Children”). In the past decades, the government has attempted to develop effective lunch programs that limit the intake of unhealthy foods that children eat. The 1995 policy, “School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children,” required school lunches to meet one-third of the recommended number of calories, protein, and certain vitamins and minerals (Schanzenbach 686). Although this policy has been put into place, the government has not enforced it well enough. According to a recent study, only six percent of U.S. schoo...
This indicates that children do not have much knowledge about nutrition, and how bad nutrition could seriously affect them in the future. In addition, 92% of the teachers do not think nutrition should be included in the education (Carraway-Stage, Hovland, Showers, Díaz, and Duffrin, 2015). Personally, I do not think these teachers understand how important nutrition is for children. Not only United States school has considering the problem of nutrition education, but also many other countries as well. For example, the country Solvenia, in its elementary schools they started to do three different levels of nutrition survey in the school (Gregorič, Pograjc, Pavlovec, Simčič, Gabrijelčič). The result shows how the
That leads to the children adopting the lifestyle to their adulthood stage of life, making the world to be full of obese and overweight unhealthy individuals prone to many diseases (FamilyDoctor.org). The schools should have healthy diet menus to have mentally alert students who are excellent in their academic work without depression and anxiety to avoid cases of school strikes and dropouts which are in association with the poor eating habits. For the students to participate in sports fully and to determine their talents, there should be no junk foods in schools for them to be strong without complications related to severe eating such as weak bones which can hinder them from taking part in sports. Lastly for the parents not to spend so much money on their children’s food, the schools should provide the healthy diet which is cheaper and its consumption is not frequent, unlike the junk whose serving is at any time leading to
School lunches leave students with limited options, leaving no room for improvement in the fight for childhood obesity that one in three children suffer from. (8) Having the same, repetitive, items that are high in fat, sugar, preservatives, and additives(1) increase chances of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes in students to name a few.(2) Even with the additional ameliorates directly from the White House, they only affect federally funded schools, excluding private schools. (4) With these weaknesses in our school lunch system, reform is definitely needed to conquer these common issues.