The government should provide enough funding money to public schools to help fight child obesity by changing schools menus, adding more physical education programs, getting parents involvement, requiring teachers to change curriculum to more educational topics about nutrition and getting the community to sponsor programs that help train children on fitness and nutrition.
The government should increase funding for public schools, as a fight to end child obesity in public schools. According to the authors of Physical Activity and Childhood Obesity: Strategies and Solutions for Schools and Parents, "Obesity is defined as an excessive accumulation of body fat" ( Green, Hargrove, and Riley 916). This proves the children who are fighting child obesity have body fat. The government funding should provide help to public schools so they 're able to change the menu and also provide nutritional educators for public schools. A child that learns healthy eating and exercises would most likely to continue this healthy habits into adulthood. Improving the lunch menu in the cafeteria to service more appealing nutritious food on the menu. Children should have an option to pick vegetables over fries. If the school cafeteria changes certain things around by putting healthy food in front of junk food, maybe this will encourage children to pick up the health food instead of the junk food. The recent article in Boston
Rios 2
Globe, the author writes, “Wansink thinks that schools can encourage healthier eating using cheaper, easier, and more kid-friendly fixes. He 's found, for example, that children are less likely to eat ice cream if it 's stored in an opaque cooler instead of a clear one—and that children are more likely to choose plain skim mil...
... middle of paper ...
... lifestyle. The Community involvement in helping fight child obesity plays an important role because everyone can contribute their help in the fight of child obesity. Their was no money involved with the program, only a community and a public school trying to fight child obesity.
Child obesity is a serious health issue in public schools. This proves why the government should help provide more funding money for public schools. This growing issue of child obesity can be slowed down, if the public schools take action. The public school system can take steps in towards the fight for child obesity by changing schools menus, adding more physical education programs, getting parents involvement, requiring teachers to change curriculum to more educational topics about nutrition and getting the community to sponsor programs that help train children on fitness and nutrition.
The fine arts were once highly revered by the community and were a part of everyday life, yet today the fine arts must face their biggest competitor, that being sports. Sports have become a big business and many schools find it easier and better to cut arts programs due to low funding rather than athletic programs. Even though fine arts programs are not as profitable as athletic programs, they should be funded equally to athletic programs because they help student achievement, help students improve their cognitive skills, and encourage creativity.
From Kindergarten to 12th grade, children spend most of their time at school. School, what we adults think, is supposed to be the teachers of our children while we are at work. They feed them lunch, and possibly breakfast, five days out the week, keep them active, and teach them all about their body and health in health class. But, are they really taking care of them enough? Some schools fail to serve healthy foods, teach health class, or even provide enough time to be physically active. One in three kids are obese, that is reason enough to care about these children’s lives at school. Schools are one of the reasons that the younger generation has a fast growing obese rate.
School funding for public schools has collectively been cut by $7.6 billion since 2002, forcing schools districts in Georgia to a tipping point. The 2001 recession had a major effect on Georgia’s fiscal condition, which consequently had a major effect on the financing of K-12 education in Georgia. School budgets are used to describe a district’s plan for the upcoming year as pertaining to anticipated revenues and expenditures. Each district’s budget heavily relies on the amount of money they receive from the state’s general fund and since that number has significantly dropped in recent years schools are not able to provide the best education for our students. The budget for public schools in Georgia should be increased because teachers are losing their jobs and schools are being forced to eliminate valuable programs that are instrumental in the education of our youth.
In order to impede the epidemic of childhood obesity, the actual causes of the problem need to be evaluated and dissected. Obesity in children is becoming a huge problem in American society. In the past three decades, the rate of overweight children has increased by 300%. This is an alarming rate that is only climbing higher. Every member in society should take steps to becoming healthier. This would help the present generations as well as future generations to come. The lifestyle of Americans keeps us too busy to be a healthy society.
Childhood obesity has been on the rise in the last couple of years. In the 1970’s childhood obesity was never a concern to the public until the number increased over the years. An alarming rate of 31% of all adults have been obese since they were children and the rates of childhood obesity don’t fall too behind with an 18% of children being obese. That makes almost half of obese adults and children. A child that is obese has a 70-80% higher chance of staying obese even through their adulthood if no action is taken. Childhood obesity is not something children are in control of, these children suffer from different outcomes since they can’t look after themselves and heavily rely on someone to aid them when they need it. These numbers can be drastically altered in a positive way by educating both children and parents about healthy, nutritious foods to consume, supplying schools with better lunch and healthier vending machines with healthy choices and promoting after school activities to keep children active and away from electronics.
The funding of public education has long been an issue for the state government of Texas. Starting before Texas was even a state, public education funding was at the forefront of politicians’ minds. In 1836, one of the reasons Anglo-Texans wanted to become independent from Mexico was Mexico’s lack of a public school system (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). This drove the desire of President Mirabeau B. Lamar of the Republic of Texas to create legislation that would grant public schools land (A Brief History of Public Education, n.d.). This act set aside four leagues of land per county for the use of free education centers and thus began the funding of public education by the state government (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). In the last 177 years, the Texas Legislature and the Texas Education Agency have created numerous acts and laws regarding the funding of education, but it has been in the last 50 years that this topic has become highly contested, resulting in several lawsuits and endless efforts (by the school districts) to equalize the distribution of funds to Texas school districts (Texas School Finance History, n.d.). In sum, the complex issues and policies that surround the funding of public education are derived from a combination of the legislature, bureaucratic agencies, and local governments in the form of school districts.
Walk onto any college campus or any other type of school campus and you will see many students that are either obese or close to being obese. Many cafeterias serve healthy foods and non-healthy foods. Schools came up with the rule that you can’t check out lunch without a fruit or vegetable. The only problem is that most students end up taking them and end up wasting them by throwing them away. Considering I am a college student, I understand the challenge of eating unhealthy when I am trying to eat healthier. Overall, I know that if I don 't start eating healthier soon I could end up gaining a lot of weight and become obese. For this research project, I decided to ask, what can be done about the problem of obesity in our country? This question
Childhood obesity proves to still be on the rise in our schools and not enough is being done to stop it. Despite the many reforms
Obesity in children across America has become an increasing public health concern. Obesity has been identified as an epidemic that is plaguing our children in the United States. In some countries around the world children are dying of starvation everyday. How can this happen when here in America the opposite is a major problem? This is not to say that in America there are no hungry or starving children. It has been proven that our children suffer from obesity, and “children who are overweight or obese as preschoolers are five times as likely as normal-weight children to be overweight or obese as adults” (“Hope”). Obesity not only can cause a child to become more prone to having health problems down the road, but it can also make them feel insecure about themselves. There needs to be action taken in schools as well as in homes to help prevent this growing epidemic.
Obesity has become an epidemic in adults and children in the United States. Moreover, children are at risk of obesity because they do not eat enough fruits and vegetables and do not obtain enough physical activity. Also, children have a higher chance of developing health diseases related to obesity such as hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, heart disease, diabetes and pulmonary disease. In addition, obesity in children from ages one to seventeen is an issue in Texas, since children are not aware of the serious consequences of being obese. Therefore, Texas should find ways to prevent obesity by authorizing healthier school lunches and allowing a school program to help obese children lose weight. Also, television advertisements are influencing obese children to make unhealthy choices.
There are a few solutions to the problems of rampant obesity, unchecked greed, and huge disparities in wealth. The first would be place more significance on education, by funding it with taxes, banning advertisement of unhealthy foods or fast food corporations, and teaching children to make healthy food choices. The second step would be to regulate the fast food industry as much as necessary, especially with respect to food safety and working conditions. A third step would be to stop subsidizing the fast food industry with agriculture subsidies and tax breaks, and allow business to compete fairly. Although no system is perfect, ignoring a problem will only cause more.
According to the American Journal of Public Health, obesity can be linked to nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the United States (Laidman). The saddest part about this statistic is that obesity is, in most cases, brought on by the individual. With fast food being a cheap and convenient way to feed the family, obesity has constantly been on the rise since the industry’s proliferation. Poor diet combined with lack of exercise has caused the emergence of routine doctor visits for avoidable conditions. Beginning with the youth, school programs that teach nutrition and fitness can help stop the growing numbers. Help and support from the government to lower the amount of advertisements to the public and reconstruction of communities that are more walker and biker friendly can greatly reduce the amount of obesity in the nation. Obesity is a serious problem in the United States that can be defeated through education and self-control.
Childhood obesity is an increasing problem here in the United States. According to Schuab and Marian (2011) “Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions” (P.553). The prevalence of child obesity and overweight has increased over the last 30 years all over the United States, becoming one of the biggest public health challenges (Moreno, Johnson-Shelton, & Boles, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to give a background of the obesity epidemic, a review of current policy, and make a policy recommendation.
Childhood obesity is a serious problem among American children. Some doctors are even calling childhood obesity an epidemic because of the large percentage of children being diagnosed each year as either overweight or obese. “According to DASH sixteen to thirty-three percent of American children each year is being told they are obese.” (Childhood Obesity) There is only a small percentage, approximately one percent, of those children who are obese due to physical or health related issues; although, a condition that is this serious, like obesity, could have been prevented. With close monitoring and choosing a healthier lifestyle there would be no reason to have such a high obesity rate in the United States (Caryn). Unfortunately, for these children that are now considered to be obese, they could possibly be facing some serious health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and some types of cancers. All of these diseases have been linked to obesity through research. These children never asked for this to happen to them; however, it has happened, and now they will either live their entire life being obese, or they will be forced to reverse what has already been done (Childhood Obesity).
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...