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Does school lunches cause obesity essay
The child obesity epidemic in America
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Childhood obesity has been an occurring problem in the United States for many years with many factors that cause this issue. Obesity will continue to be an issue unless changes are made with the the government, The National School Lunch Program, and school districts themselves. It is not surprising that America holds some of the highest obesity rates due to not only the fast food restaurants that surrounds us, but also fried foods that the schools serve us. If changes are not made in the near future, obesity rates will increase, and students will continue to avoid the cafeteria. I am not saying school lunches are to blame for obesity rates, however it would be beneficial for schools to serve healthier lunches. Doing so could decrease obesity …show more content…
rates over a course of time. There is not much that can done about fast food restaurants, but a change can be made involving the lunches students receive on a daily basis. The nutritional values of school lunches have been questioned frequently until a leading figure took a stand.
The increase rate in childhood obesity urged Michelle Obama to improve school lunches. In result of First Lady Michelle Obama addressing the issue, nutrition standards were raised in the Healthy Food Act of 2010. Sources show that this law caused a heated debate among parents. The question still stands, is the food actually healthy? the food system in the United States is making it very difficult for students to receive the nutrition they need to grow into healthy adults. The National School Lunch Program plays a huge role involving school lunches. I believe that the National School Lunch Program has influenced school lunches in a few positive ways. Their program is great for low income families and they also promote healthy eating and physical activity through changes in school environments. The National School Lunch Program is the reason behind schools serving breakfast, as well as the increased amount of fruits and vegetables. The National School Lunch Program, Michelle Obama, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, another contributor in school lunches, have been fighting to improve school lunches, but they are not doing so well when it comes to improving the food served on the …show more content…
plates. According to various sources, the food that students receive barely meet the nutritional guidelines. Infact, the meat that is served daily may not meet the guidelines of fast food industries according to an on-going investigation. “A recent USA Today investigation found that the nation’s largest fast-food chains have higher quality and safety standards for the meat they use than what the U.S. Department of Agriculture has for the meat used for the National School Lunch Program, which is served to 31 million students a day (“Quality of School Lunches Questioned”). With students questioning what is being placed onto their trays day by day, less students eat lunch provided by the school. Studenting avoiding the cafeteria lead to bigger issues. One example would be hunger. Hunger contributes to the inability to concentrate and lack of motivation, which ultimately leads to poor academic performance. This all leads back to the poor nutritional value of the food that is served. Organizational groups are trying to make a difference, however students are still being served fried chicken and other processed meat. Another source states the same facts, “More than one-third of kids in America are obese or overweight.
In 2013, the National School Lunch Program, a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools, served 5.1 billion lunches, Bloomberg reports. The quality of these lunches must somehow correlate to the health of America's youth, considering more than 32 million children are served NSLP every day” (“Photos Of School Lunches From Around The World Will Make American Kids Want To Study Abroad”). I strongly believe that a solution to this problem should begin with lunch. While doing further research, I noticed how U.S schools compared to other countries. From what I have seen, countries such as Brazil, Italy, and Finland serve their students nutrient packed foods. Their plates are piled high with leafy greens and fresh fruits, while schools in the U.S have fried “popcorn” chicken, mashed potatoes and funnel cakes on some days. Not all countries have these meal advantages, but it would be effective for the United States to follow other countries
examples. Although breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day, I believe lunch is also crucial. It is understandable that budgets affect what students are given to eat, but other countries are farther behind on the rate of obesity in their countries compared to the United States. Does it have to do with school lunches? It is a possibility. I firmly believe that it is important that students, especially children are provided with fresh fruits and vegetables, and less fatty foods. The food students eat not only affect their health, but also their academic performance. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, and obesity rates along with it may decrease in the process.
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 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.
As discussed throughout this paper there has been controversy about Michelle Obama’s school lunch guidelines. The reader has heard multiple arguments developed from this topic from each viewpoint expressed in this dispute. Now it is up to them to take a side.This paper is about Michelle Obama’s school lunch guidelines and how they are affecting schools and students across the nation. To help reduce the number of overweight children in America, Michelle Obama made lunch regulations schools had to follow and sparked a widespread conflict.
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)
Allowing healthier school lunches will decrease obesity in children because it will give them the proper nutrition to reduce the risk of health issues. Since obesity causes many health issues, maintaining a proper nutrition will reduce the risk of health issues. According to Star- Telegram, a daily newspaper that serves Fort Worth and areas of North Texas states, “[School lunches that have] a meal of pizza sticks, a banana, raisins and whole milk has given way to whole wheat spaghetti with meat sauce, a whole wheat roll green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, kiwi and low-fat milk … This change will help more than 2.4 million Texas students who receive a free or reduced- price school lunch to lead healthier, more active lives—in and out of the classroom”(Par. 2 and 4). School lunches are supposed to guarantee students a well balance meal, so they can have the energy to proceed with their classes throughout the day. Meanwhile, students who receive a f...
“More than a third of the county's children are overweight or obese.”(Gustin, 1). As shocking as this is, it's true. One of the big reasons that children and teens are overweight is because of the foods that they eat. They are fed these fattening and unhealthy foods by the school system. Their futures can be changed if we change our choices. Having more nutritious lunches can have a positive impact on the health of American teens.
The shocking truth about our school lunches is that they are not health for young kids. The meat most schools use K.F.C and Campbell soup refuse to buy such meat. This shows that school lunch is not very health for kids if fast food won’t even use it. Schools are also
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 importance of this topic is that the school lunch program is needing to change for the fact that kids aren't eating lunch because it doesn't appeal to the taste buds of children and they would rather bring there own food instead of paying for school lunch which is a main source of many for the school. The average school lunch cost $2.70 and that is for 1main dish 1 fruit or vegetable 1 grain and 1 dairy which usually with the proportions does not fill up a student.
Based on the observations and analyses completed by Walton, Hannon, and Flynn it was concluded that the packed lunches were essentially the least nutritious meal of the children’s day. On average, lunch was the lowest in macronutrients and the highest in sugars and salts. On the other hand, breakfast food and dinner contributed positively to the children’s dietary nutrition. The most nutrient dense meal, as found from the study, was consumed before school and the meal with the most dietary fiber was consumed after school. The article claims that the nutritional value of the meals eaten by children at school needs to be altered to improve the overall quality of the school-day diet.
"Healthy School Meals…Healthy Kids! A Leadership Guide for School Decision-Makers." Food and Consumer Service (USDA). Washington D.C. 1997.
The Child Nutrition Department of Denton Independent School District (ISD) serves all the students attend the thirty-five schools that are part of the school district.1 The cafeterias at these locations all offer breakfast and lunch. All meals are eligible for federal and state reimbursement through the School breakfast Program (SBP) and National School Lunch Program (NSLP).2 Currently, student participation in school breakfasts is much lower than that of school lunches.
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like. Students dint have much time to eat at lunch. “Children are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables when given 25 minutes. Michelle Obama said that school lunches are healthier. The national poll show that more than 80 percent support healthy school meals. I’m against the school lunch policy. I believe that school lunch should be better for the following reasons that students what better food, also lunches need to have more food, more time.
American schools are under a pressure to serve the children of America now more than ever. On top of trying to create a learning curve to brighten our country’s future, while not leaving any children behind (with the 'No Child Left Behind Act'), the new stress of nutrition has been added to the undoubtedly long list of impossible tasks that United States public schools must accomplish. While there are several ways of implementing changes to the school-served lunches, changing the minds of parents who pack their children’s lunch can be a whole new daunting task. With the U.S. getting more and more parents working instead of staying home with children, it seems convenience and speed have put nutrition and health in the back seat. Even though the public is concerned with child obesity and children’s overall health and well-being, it is the same public that, when broken down into households, is the direct problem.
Children nibbling on carrot sticks and sitting with folded napkins would be picturesque when walking into any American lunchroom. But more often than not, we see individuals scarfing down a pack of Pringles in between broken conversations. Although nutrition mandates have piled up in the past few years, effects have been underwhelming. This is largely due to the manner in which students are fed. An obvious next step would be to increase the time given for lunch, bettering children’s health, teaching social skills, and improving academics.