There are many schools who are serving unhealthy food in their cafeterias to children, many of whom are obese, underfed, or on their way to obesity. There are very few schools who offer their students healthy choices. Children are going to school and are eating greasy fries, pizza, burgers, with either a soda or fruit punch, then maybe they will get cake, fudge, or cookies for dessert. Many schools especially middle school and high schools have vending machines that many students use as substitutes for their lunch. Although they have removed vending machines from elementary schools and many middle schools, they should remove them from all schools entirely. Not only are they overpriced, but very unhealthy.
There is a Child Nutrition Act, mentioned in The New York Times, that is being presented to the Senate and should be passed. This will promote healthier foods at schools, and provide more organic foods and healthier options for children to choose from. This will help fight obesity as well, for child obesity is alarmingly increasing. Children are not getting the right nutrition and are also not exercising as they should be. By providing healthier options at school could instill in these children healthier eating habits from a young age. Congress should pass this bill; it would help with the recent Health Care bill that was passed. Children will be healthier and would therefore not develop rare diseases and this would reduce visitations to hospitals.
Although this bill is a very good star, it can use some improvements. It should include in there the removal of all vending machines in schools. It should also encourage more physical education in schools especially elementary and middle schools. The Senate should provide more funding, especially since the economy is improving. This something that should be strongly encouraged in all schools across the nation, there are too many children who are obese and it is mainly due to high car meals in schools, and buying all kinds of junk foods to fill their appetites. They see vending machines which provide them with mouth-watering candies, and chocolates, and ice-cold sodas. If they were to be removed they wouldn’t even think about it, out of sight out of mind. If this bill was passed it could be an improvement in children leading a health life-style from a young age.
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Although the arguments in her post are valid, there is another side to the argument. Unhealthy school food is not the only reason the youth of America today is obese, good nutrition starts at home. Let’s say that Congress passes the Child Nutrition Act and “greasy fries, pizza” etc… are replaced by healthy, organic meals and the vending machines are removed completely, this still wouldn’t solve the problem. If the kids don’t like the new healthier school food, they are not going to eat it, plain and simple. Younger students will start to bring their own lunch to school filled with snacks and sodas, and the older high school kids will go off campus to eat McDonalds, Taco Bell and other unhealthy fast food. This is essence counteracted the attempt to force the students to eat healthier. Then on top of that when the kids go home, they can eat whatever they want, mostly unhealthy fat filled foods. The Act in congress is too limited to have any real lasting effect of stopping childhood obesity. The real problem can either end or be caused by the parents. If the parents teach their kids healthy eating habits then the kids will be less afflicted with the chance of being obese. On the other hand, if they feed their children unhealthy fattening food, the kid will most likely follow that example as they grow, thus becoming obese. All in all, the Child Nutrition Act is not the answer to end child obesity, the task is much larger and in order to succeed parents need to get involved.
ReplyDeleteI just read one of my classmates blogs on childhood obesity called A Healthy Choice. I do have to say I agree with her completely. I do think that Congress should pass the Child Nutrition Act because just through my experiences in my K-12 years, me and many others probably lived off of vending machines. Just the smell of the crap coming from the cafeteria was enough to make me want to vomit, and so I went straight to the machines. So if schools were to take out vending machines and offer healthier foods that also tasted decent enough to nourish children's bellies, I really do think that it would cut down on this childhood obesity epidemic. I have a son who loves to eat, so I can just imagine him seeing those yummy potato chips and thinking, "MMMMmmmm!" He's already on the higher side of his percentile in weight and I have done better with offering him healthier options at home. I would most definitely like to see it continue on while he is at school because it would defeat the purpose if they just feed him crap at school. Yes, most schools have replaced vending machines with water and Gatorade or just removed them completely, but I know the elementary school my niece goes to, they have separate stands set up so the kids can buy junk food after they have eaten their lunch. This also defeats the purpose of removing or replacing the vending machines.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, I agree with my classmate. I think they should get rid of junk food all together. I don't know what I would eat but at least I'll know my son and everyone's kids would be healthier, which would mean less trips to the doctor. Although healthy foods are more expensive, I think everyone would save in the long run because of medical bills they won't have.
I just read one of my classmates blogs on childhood obesity called A Healthy Choice. I do have to say I agree with her completely. I do think that Congress should pass the Child Nutrition Act because just through my experiences in my K-12 years, me and many others probably lived off of vending machines. Just the smell of the crap coming from the cafeteria was enough to make me want to vomit, and so I went straight to the machines. So if schools were to take out vending machines and offer healthier foods that also tasted decent enough to nourish children's bellies, I really do think that it would cut down on this childhood obesity epidemic. I have a son who loves to eat, so I can just imagine him seeing those yummy potato chips and thinking, "MMMMmmmm!" He's already on the higher side of his percentile in weight and I have done better with offering him healthier options at home. I would most definitely like to see it continue on while he is at school because it would defeat the purpose if they just feed him crap at school. Yes, most schools have replaced vending machines with water and Gatorade or just removed them completely, but I know the elementary school my niece goes to, they have separate stands set up so the kids can buy junk food after they have eaten their lunch. This also defeats the purpose of removing or replacing the vending machines.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, I agree with my classmate. I think they should get rid of junk food all together. I don't know what I would eat but at least I'll know my son and everyone's kids would be healthier, which would mean less trips to the doctor. Although healthy foods are more expensive, I think everyone would save in the long run because of medical bills they won't have.
I do agree that our schools should offer a healthier selection of foods to choose from and be rid of the vending machines as well. It is not a total solution to the health of our next generation of kids, but it is a start to having a more healthy country. Working at an elementary I have seen much improvement in our children diets and hopefully after the Child Nutrition Act being passed more schools will follow suit. As much as this will help improve children diets and health it is only a partial solution. The other half of the solution begins at home with the parents incorporating and teaching their children how to eat right.
ReplyDeleteThe obesity issue is not only with the diet it also can be caused by the lack of exercise. Many kids nowadays do not get as much exercise as they should on a daily basis. With the advancement of technology it has kept kid’s in-doors playing videos games. I have seen this while working at an elementary and when the children are allowed to play their hand-held video games they forget about gym time and playground time. And in conclusion the arguments in this post are a great start towards a healthier country, but we also need to address the issues with the lack of exercise as well.
I agree with the whole getting healthier food to the children in the schools but the food that they serve them is cheaper and there are a lot of kids in Americas’ schools which makes it affordable. I agree that the government should provide more funding but healthier foods tend to be more expensive and I know if they begin to distribute healthier foods they will get cheaper. Getting more exercise in schools will take time from their learning, so a longer school day will be needed for that, meaning more funding. Candy’s and sodas are everywhere and are less expensive to have around rather than having a milk machine where the milk goes bad because no one buys it, same thing for fresh fruits and vegetable. It comes down to the parents I think to make sure their kids eat healthy, only partially (the government) because they have them 8 hours out of the day. They could pack them a lunch, even though most parents don’t have that kind of money to make their kids lunches, which would be hard. The parents should keep their kids active instead of playing video games and watching television. The schools can only do so much in 8 hours and the parents have the kids 16 hours a day and the whole weekend and summer. So a lot has to do with the mom and dad. I have younger siblings and I always tell them to be outside playing than being on the computer or playing games because it is unhealthy. It is up to the parent, the child’s eating habits as well but like you say if they implemented healthier foods gradually I’m sure the kids will catch on. I believe that the bill should be passed to give the children healthier choices and decrease the obesity rate of children because the life expectancy for their generations will be far less than older generations. So if the parents and schools could get onto the same page and work together I think it will be a success, the government funding can’t do it alone. I support this bill greatly but I wish it should've been implemented sooner.
ReplyDeleteI have recently read one of my classmate’s blog about fighting childhood obesity and in all honestly she hits the mark point blank. In the post she talks about the unhealthy habits that children gain from an early age at school. While the schools serve them unhealthy and un-edible food most children run to the vending machines to get their fill this is an extremely unhealthy habit that many children have gathered over the years (I confess I’ am one of them) these vending machines contain only products that contain an unhealthy and unsafe amount of sugar and salt during the day many children crash in the class rooms disturbing their school work and by the time they are arrive home at the end of the day, the children on back on their sugar binge while sitting on the couch.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest brother is an example of this because he and his friends claim that the school’s food “looks unsafe” they turn to the snack line (the line that contains foods like pizza hut and curly fries, cookies and soda’s) by the end of the day when they come home they are back on their fatty food binge. And honestly the only keeping them to ballooning to an unhealthy weight in their love for football. While of their classmates are not so lucky, these children need to be valued more and given better cooked balanced meals, and given more options to maintain fitness at school, and parents are also the blame for this epidemic when children whine most parents give them what they want (fast food and high fructose foods) if parents put their foot down this could end. Also if children complain about the school lunch then parents can help by packing their child’s lunch with better food choices
I agree that the food served at school cafeterias is not very healthy and should be changed to a healthier alternative such as organic food. I disagree however, with the removal of vending machines from school. The removal of vending machines at school, I believe, would just be a minor inconvenience for students. I’ve seen students and I have personally gone to the corner store before heading to class to buy junk food, energy drinks, and unhealthy food and just stuff them in the backpack to be eaten later during lunch time. I believe the reason they eat junk food is the way they were educated, if they were not given restrictions by their parents on what they eat, they will grab unhealthy food.
ReplyDeleteThe solution for this problem I believe lies not only with the parents education their children on healthy eating habits, but the vending machines mentioned earlier can also offer healthy alternatives to chocolate bars and chips and that is granola bars and things of that nature. Although as I mentioned this is just a minor inconvenience for the typical high school student as they can still go to the corner store before school or if it’s an open campus they can go during lunch to buy something there. As for exercise I do believe that students should take at least one class that they have to get physically involved in per semester.