Obesity is a Widespread Epidemic

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The young child stands looking up at the tall machine filled with every food he could want and more, stuffed behind the thick glass. How likely is it that he’ll walk past and instead choose a nice crunchy carrot over his Cheetos? Simple choices like these add up over time to make up a lifestyle of habits. A child’s diet is the building block to their health and the nutrition that they intake at school is vital to the rest of their life. Despite previous efforts to reduce the abundance of junk food within school lunch programs, there is still a great need to rethink the availability of caffeine and snacks, saturated in fat that could potentially lead to an array of health issues.
Obesity is a widespread health epidemic that is spreading throughout the US and nearly 20% of children from ages 6-11 in America are considered obese and the snacks that students eat play a large part it (Carson-Dewitt). One of the major causes for this is that junk food is constantly at their fingertips, especially within the school systems where they spend roughly 38 hours a week at. Based on a recent study in 2012, it was proven that schools that sold the most high caloric and saturated in fat snacks were located in the South where obesity is a major issue (USAToday). This proves that there is a direct correlation between the snacks being served as well as the obesity rates found within the schools. If these snacks continue to be sold, the obesity rates will only increase and thus create an array of health issues and problems for schools and the students. Within a study based off of 4,000 schools and the snacks that are offered, 45% of them sold snacks that were high in sugar and salt content (USAToday). Snacks play a large part for many students and ...

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