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The problem of obesity among schoolchildren
Obesity among schoolchildrens article
The problem of obesity among schoolchildren
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I remember the years preceding senior year at Corcoran High; I remember quite vividly, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. I recall the meals the school used to serve students. They weren’t too bad; some were decent and were often looked forward to. I have had many experiences at this school, but none stand parallel with the experience I had with this year’s lunch program. The lunch meals being served to the students at Corcoran High are not nutritious, healthy, or at all fresh. The school claims the meals are healthy and harmless, yet the taste, scent, and the students’ judgment reveal otherwise. I understand that Corcoran High is trying to save money, but spending a few extra dollars certainly wont hurt. It is necessary for this matter to become a …show more content…
The CUSD needs to be aware that the food is very undesirable. In serving these foods, the district officials are implying they couldn’t care less about their students’ health. They focus their attention on simple and inexpensive. This absence of care is unhealthy for students, and possibly the entire school. The CHS lunch program is performing very poorly, food being served can be described as soggy, dry, plain, and disgusting. I guarantee the authorities would develop the same feelings if they were to consume this kind of food five days a week. I propose that the school district establish an agenda to help increase the lunch programs' performance. The school should select fresh and healthy food, such as salads, fruits, and vegetables. Another suggestion I would like to bring forth is that the school prohibits any sugary snacks and beverages on campus, and permits only water, milk, and juices during breakfast and lunch to help prevent obesity. Students have requested that the school additionally expand its menu and enhance desirable foods, such as chicken, meat, potatoes, spaghetti, and rice, as well as halt the serving of consistent meals on a daily
Janet Poppendieck is a professor of sociology at Hunter College in New York, and additionally she is the author of several books including her most recent Free for All: Fixing School Food in America. This book centers on America’s recent interest in whether or not our school lunches are healthy. This issue has been put into the spotlight recently through shows such as Jamie Oliver’s School Food Revolution and in the news because recent changes in the Nation School Lunch Program’s dietary guidelines. Poppendieck’s book looks at the in depth reasons into why school lunches have turned into what they are today, what challenges need to be faced in order to fix school lunches, and ultimately how our the system should be fixed. She accomplishes this by interviewing her current college students about their previous school lunch experiences, working in a school cafeteria, interviewing current school employees, and looking at the history and policies of the National School Lunch Program.
Schools with enormous food courts where students can buy meals and drinks from commonly known franchises, such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola, are the schools with the most health problems. Fast-food franchises are showing up everywhere, but do these businesses belong in high schools? No! Schools are here to enlighten students for life after school. If high schools promote bad eating habits by placing fast-food franchises in their cafeterias, then how can students eat right and healthy beyond high school.
Having different food can affect a child health. There are milky ways, cake, cookies, pizza and lets just add some French fries in there and call that lunch. Don’t forget the drink sweet tea, pop and milk that one doesn’t choose to drink it. The students would go back to the class rooms after twenty minutes and be hungry at the end of the da. Garland said, “Instead, we allow school cafeterias to dispense the same junk food that kids could buy in any mall” (621). There has been so much junk food and soft drinks in schools that makes the student health unsafe and a distraction to their education. Garland mentioned that the students are filling up with fat, salt and sugar rather than filling up with fruit, whole grains and vegetables. Schools should be about healthiness, and well balanced diets. With having Students eat healthy can boost up their energy and ability to learn. With that being said when I was in high school it was nothing but junk food for three years. When Michele Obama changed the law on the school lunches my senior lunches have changed. It was nothing but healthy food like whole grain, no sweets, two scoops of fruits and vegetables. At Odessa they had a school store loaded with junk food that would be sold out by forth period. When the law came to the school there was nothing but baked chip and replaced with other baked nutrition food or we had nothing at all. The drink machines were changed out
In the United States the daily public school lunch consists of pizza, cheese burgers, Chef Boyardee ravioli, fried chicken fingers, French fries and it gets worse. Most American students hate the lunch that their school provides, which means as soon as they are able to drive, they leave school and go to the nearest fast food restaurant. "Critics say that school lunches contribute to the fattening of the United States." (5) The most controversial argument about US school lunches happened when "David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, proposed classifying ketchup as a vegetable to meet dietary requirements while also slashing costs." (5) Honestly, what's next? American school lunches have to meet the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines, which obviously is not good enough considering "30% of individuals calories come from fat, and 10% from saturated fat." (5)
Since the beginning of time, schools were always a place we could trust. A place where we could send our kid(s) off to without worry of what they may be learning, doing, or eating, but perhaps we should be. As the craving of fast food is growing, so is the demand for it. Some schools have taken advantage of this and brought fast food into their schools, providing it for lunch. A high school in California serves McDonald’s, Subway, and even Quiznos to their students for lunch (Lehmann). The school claims the kids are more likely to buy school food when they see brand foods (n.p.). Schools get money from the National School Lunch Program for every meal they serve, but that money from the government only covers so much (n.p.). To pay the rest of the lunch staff, facilities costs, and food, schools turn to the money they make by selling lunches and breakfast to their students (n.p.). Another school in California has even tried to mimic Round Table, a brand name pizza in their area, with healthier ingredients, but was only able to sell 250-300; when they sold Round T...
One reason our school should get a new lunch menu is many students do not like the food served. For example, a survey was taken and of the 31 students 100% said they disliked the food. As student Bryan Huang said, “The lunches are horrible, they need better choices and more choices.” In other words, the food is not delicious and there are not many choices. Also, when children don’t get proper nutrition they have trouble focusing in school. Most students do not buy lunch because they feel it is unappealing and do not like the food served. Many students go to other kids and ask for food. In addition, many students do not eat breakfast so they rely on lunch to fuel them for the day. But, if they do not like the food served they won’t eat so they starve for the rest of the school day, which can
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 ...
The regulations passed by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act make it harder than ever for schools to provide adequate nutrition to students by having such rigorous guidelines. While some schools have had no issue following guidelines, not every school is able to source viable food while staying in budget. It is vital that cafeterias are able to successfully meet guidelines, but it is also important that they provide food that students will eagerly consume as well as help them become better students.
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...
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...
Many cafeteria workers and staff members in 49 states have said many students do not want the governments new school lunches. Almost 7 out of 17 schools with have been seen with students throwing away some or all their fruits or vegetables, even the cafeteria workers are suffering under these new standards. About 60.3 percent of school districts want flexibility to be given to all schools to improve their ability to provide and give good nutrition without harm to any instructions and school district operations. Schools should know by now what is good for students and what is not, but they should not go overboard with the wheat and whole grain items. Another example that shows that schools should be responsible for providing a nutritious lunch is knowing that there are a variety of ways to make healthy foods taste good for school students. Healthy tasty food that will risk diabetes and obesity .One of the biggest reasons people do not eat healthy foods is because they feel it as if it will not taste good. The problem is, if your health food does not taste good, you are eating the wrong health food. Just because something is good for you does not mean it has to taste nasty, boring, or completely gross. There are plenty of ideas out there for eating healthy without making sacrifices on taste. “It is silly that people are worried about kids throwing things out. There are many ways to make
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
High school is meant to be the time of your life, but for most seniors just like me it can be some of the most emotional and crazy time. The things in my past make me who I am today, and the things I do now are the first footsteps into the future. I’ve learned a lot about myself in these past four years, and I still have so much learning to do. This is my high school story; the good, bad, and the ugly.
Let’s flash back in time to before our college days. Back to then we had lunch trays filled with rubbery chicken nuggets, stale pizza, and bags of chocolate milk. A backpack stacked with Lisa Frank note books, flexi rulers, and color changing pencils. The times where we thought we wouldn’t make it out alive, but we did. Through all the trials and tribulations school helped build who I am today and shaped my future. From basic functions all the way to life-long lessons that helped shape my character.
First of all, students aren’t motivated to eat unhealthy, not-tasty food. If you observed students buying lunch in the cafeteria, you don’t often see them buying these kinds, but not limited to, foodstuffs: burritos (which are just beans wrapped in tortillas), “burgers” (meat slapped on two slices of bread), etc. Even the chicken nuggets aren’t very popular. And the prices! $3.75-$4.75 is not worth such “garbahge”, as a teacher would say. Out of the twenty five students I surveyed, 56% stated that they would like to see their cafeteria changed. The reasons being were, “The same stuff everyday – it gets boring”, “Tastes like plastic”, ...