Healthy Choices and the Barriers of Nutrition Education: Behavioral
Economic Status
In this decade, the roles of nutrition education have been influence in school and society due to the higher percentage of obesity and type II diabetes in among group with low education and low incomes. Many researchers and USDA assume that the cause of this issue is based on the food price, food availability, independent, lack of self-control and social class. These findings have important implication for nutrition education educator, parents, communities and government to provide the guideline of food choice, to gain the nutritional knowledge and skills for the students. However, the author Porter from "Barriers to Implementing Nutrition Education in Schools” argues that there are some of the barriers in Nutrition Education program for students and adults as well. Although he may seem of concern to only a small group of some school community member, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about their healthy choices in any social class. In this mapping issue paper, I will seek three main argument positions in nutrition education program that concern about health, education and Logistics in all ages and all social classes.
Almost every school district in the state across the U.S have nutrition education program starting from the very early stages through secondary school because it is design to provide the information, encourage behavior change conducive to adopt a healthful diet, guidelines of healthy food choices to maintain healthy lifestyle and environment. Moreover, the purpose of the Nutrition program also develop skills and behaviors related to areas such as food preparation, food preservation and storage; social and cultural aspec...
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...essed that the student should only the main subject beside the nutrition education. They claimed that having nutrition education program at the school will not help to prevent the children from obesity. For instance, people have the right to choose the foods they eat and self- control is also play in the role of the eating habit. Even though the student who already been in nutrition education program, they might still eat what they want to eat instead of thinking about their nutrition fact or health concern when feeling hungry. Because food decision based on the emotional rather than rational thought. After all, it is not easy to follow the instruction or information from nutrition education although they have gained the knowledge and skills from it. Therefore the economic researcher stated that having nutrition education program is just wasting the time and money.
Child obesity became a very serious issue that is taking on the health of the nation 's children. It is everyone responsibility to work on preventing and reducing childhood obesity, from the parents who are suppose to care about their children’s health, to the public health representatives, who should care about a future healthy nation, and everyone in between. Every part of society should create a set of lifestyle changes in order to save our kids from obesity. There are many aspects, which have to be changed or improved, including parent’s nutrition education, children’s physical activity and kid’s nutrition in a school and home, food industry and etc.
We know that children get easily affected and tend to act out of obedience due to the school environment and peers. Furthermore, its is hard to decide if their intentions are pure in eating healthier foods. We thought that it would be beneficial to introduce these options at a younger age so they have exposure to healthy foods before middle school. Also, it would be helpful to discuss these topics with the parents of the children to insure that these practices are effective in their personal life as well. Finally, we thought that the most effective when the students are able to engage across different grades and age groups. And, these kinds of programs should be broaden throughout the
...tion and to be consistent with what they are teaching to avoid hypocrisy. Students, when faced with nutrition education, will observe the hypocrisy, and conclude that nutrition is not important when everything they see around them contradicts the message their teachers are trying to send. School administrators cannot, and most likely will not, be willing to endorse this message if it is not cost-efficient. It is then up to society, congress, and the people of the U.S. to see nutrition and their children not as another business expense, but as the methods to create a standard of healthy children, regardless of the financial impact.
Introduction: The children obesity epidemic is still present today, and the growing love of fast food is fueling it. Students are not being taught good nutrition and are paying the price. With fast food restaurants appearing in more areas, one place they have remained is on high schools campuses. Having fast food on campuses has its benefits such as fast and cheap food and it can be easily accessed. The negative aspect of having fast food on high school campuses is how much is being consumed. The students are not getting the right nutrition to fuel their minds for the school work. Students need to have proper nutrition to carry on throughout the day and preform to the best of their ability.
Nutrition also plays an important role in student health. Proper nutrition promotes optimal growth and development of children. Researchers generally find that a higher quality diet is associated with better performance on academic test scores and that nutritional status can directly affect mental capacity among school age children (Frisvold). Teaching students about the benefits of good nutrition will help them stay healthy throughout their growing years. “My plate” is one of the easy and interactive tools they can avail to assist them in making healthier food
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
Childhood obesity epidemic, one of the most detrimental disorders, has maximized social and economical challenges faced by Americans in the 21st century. The United States of America has been always placed in the top-10 most obese countries, a list not be so proud about. Poor dietary habits at school due to consumption of competitive, unhealthy foods have resulted in escalating obesity thereby influencing a student’s performance in and outside school. As a major problem’s solution lies within finding its root, schools with the aid of governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and institutions, have started to provide valid solutions in an attempt to reverse this epidemic. For instance one major attempt, by the Center of Disease Control (CDC) and the State Board of Education, to alleviate this problem in schools was the introduction of ‘sin-tax’. Schools’ taxed students on purchasing sugar-sweetened beverages but that was not quite successful, as it did not stop the affluent students to purchase high calorific beverages and only targeted students with a low socio-economic background. Thus, the most influential solution implemented by these governmental organizations’ that is responsible for decreasing childhood obesity by quite a large factor is improving school meals by increasing the nutrition standard. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken mandatory mediation steps that involve eliminating the sales of competitive fast food and increasing the supply of high organic nutritious food that meets the USDA requirement thereby improving the nutrition standard. I believe schools, with the intervention of governmental agencies like the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment (SND...
In the United States as in other developed nations, the level of obesity goes up every year. Obesity is a great issue as it affects individuals, society, and the government itself. In every kind of people, the number of obese increases everyday which increase the risks of getting obesity related diseases? Based on research done by Elissa and Steele, the number of young obese people has doubled in past two decades. (12) This is not surprising because as the United States industry food aggressively markets high-fat, high-sugar, super-sized food. Many schools dropped physical education, many children spend a lot of time playing computer games instead of playing sports and even fattening snacks food is sold onto campus. Family and school education on obesity awareness is the main path to decrease obesity epidemic among young people and children beside diet and physical exercises improvement. It is necessary to improve health education in American schools and families to help kids to be aware of obesity and obesity related diseases.
having healthier meal plans for the sake of the students and the lasting effect it will have on
Nutrition is an important part of our daily lives because of the numerous effects it has on our health and fitness. There are many different influences that can affect a person’s nutritional habits. The type of environment and the way people are raised often affect the way they diet and whether that diet is healthy or unhealthy. Because a person cannot always choose how and where he or she is raised, education concerning nutrition and healthy diets should be taught to all ages and social classes. Lack of nutritional education and obesity rates are positively correlated in the United States. This lack of education as well as poor nutritional habits have played a major role in the increased amount of obese individuals in the United States, and throughout the world.
Currently, government required every import and export food products to have a nutrition label on to let the customer know the nutrition fact of products. This gives us the ideas to know what the sources are contained in the products. However, the U.S still has the highest percentage of obesity and diseases that relate to nutritional. I have read one of the articles Why Schools Need a Mandatory Nutrition Curriculum by Puccini and Romero and this article explained us how being obese effect today’s lives, especially the children and youth. According to this research, they predicted that “youth today will be the generation of American to love shorter live than their parents as a direct result of the food they eat.” I did the research on this topic at website like Chalkbeat New York and see how providing MNE in school would prevent from obesity and type II diabetes and so on. For example, MNE program taught the student how to read the nutrition facts, how to choose and prepare healthier meals at home or restaurant. Moreover, they showed the video of Food, Inc. to give the students the idea of where the fast food restaurants got their meats from. The percentage of students likely to become vegetarian are increased after seeing that video and gained the knowledge from MNE. In addition, there are many other resources on the website that I can look up to find the advantages and disadvantages of
In relation to the modern world of food, in terms of ways in which people or families have grown accustomed to this in turn affects the ways in which students and teenagers eat. In Jonathan Safran Foer’s article, “The American Table and The Global Table,” he expresses that people consume so mindlessly and ignorantly that as a nation, we are giving the government opportunities to manipulate the ways in which food is perceived. Foer argues that “today, to eat like everyone else is to add another straw to the camel’s back” (Foer 971). This is significant in that it highlights the role that consumers play in the food industry. Put bluntly, the more mindless demands that are made, the worse the situation becomes. Students and adolescents, ambitious and goal-driven, often claim that it is important to stop such unawareness, but the irony lies in the fact that we might be just as unaware. The more we demand, the more the government complies and essentially, people are “sending checks to the absolute worst abusers” (Foer 968). As administrators in the cafeteria, where finances are limited, and time is constrained on a daily basis, I believe it is so important that your team continues to implement quick, but sustainable food choices. In a sense, it is purely the matter of the ways of how easily students can be conditioned into choosing the right foods and by continuing to maintain these healthy options students will be able to avoid the growing epidemic, obesity. Michael Pollan claims that “daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds,” and what can be drawn from this is that people are affected by habits and if students are habitually surrounded by these healthier food choices, the result will be most significant and beneficial in the end (Pollan 10). While I am not saying that by implementing a
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...
The authors start by framing the importance of the school’s environment in creating and maintaining healthy eating behaviors in students, “Schoolteachers can affect students’ eating habits in several ways: through nutrition knowledge, positive role modeling, and avoidance of unhealthy classroom food practices.” This article discussed a study done by four professors of different universities throughout Canada. The purpose of the study was to look at the relationship between future schoolteachers’ knowledge and habits when it comes to eating healthy and classroom food habits. The study included a survey from 103 (out of the 130) prospective teachers completing a Baccalaureate Degree in elementary or secondary education programs. The survey included questions about how the prospective teachers viewed their health, their eating habits, what they thought about school food environment, and their nutritional knowledge. The students who took it were in their final year of the bachelors program. The survey was distributed to the students at the end of a mandatory seminar for seniors in the education program.
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...