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Since 2009 Schools have been improving there healthy choices of food like fresh fruits and salad bars,but those foods take longer to eat (Hellmich). Turning school lunches into an actual sit down meal rather than a feeding frenzy is a good way of improving health (Parker-Pope). Students usually have less than 20 minutes to eat lunch which makes it less likely for them to choose the healthy choice (Elsevier). Kids often like to eat there favorite foods first,not giving them enough time to eat the healthy food (Hellmich). An increase in school lunches could encourage students to eat the healthier choice(5 Elsevier). School nutritionist suggest that students need to have atlas 20 minutes to eat (Hellmich). Research shows that when people consume meals faster they take in more calories because they get hungry sooner (Chen). The shorter lunch periods are starting to lead to more and more obese and overweight kids ( Hellmich). Doctors are saying there are more and more kids getting diabetes and other illnesses due to the lunches and something needs to be done about it

Childhood obesity is a major cause for concern within the United States. This is mainly due to children not getting the require nutrition that they need. Although study show that there is a decrease in obesity in children, it still remains at an all-time high. Children are failing to eat as healthy as they should, and it has become an even bigger problem now that they aren’t getting the require amount of food in their diets. The USDA made a decision a couple of years ago to reduce the amount of food given to children while they are at school. This hurts them tremendously, because the majority of the food they eat comes from being at school all day. The other half lies on the parents when they go home and eat dinner. It is very important for children to eat healthy and eat the required amount of food according to various dietary guidelines. First Lady Michelle Obama has started a new campaign to help kids and parents combat obesity in children. One thing that the campaign has placed emphases on is getting healthier food within school. Although they are getting healthier foods in school they are beginning to change the proportion they are giving students. Through the First Lady’s Let’s Move campaign students should be giving healthier foods and also be allowed to have the correct proportion to help them maintain a healthy diet.

People live in a complex world where things are never as simple as they seem. Officials agree that in order for students to perform well in school, their basic needs have to be met (in conjunction with the ideas of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). While schools may not be able to provide a safe place to sleep or warm clothing during the winter, they can provide a healthy, nutritious meal. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, the number of children under 18 years of age living below the federal poverty level of $23,550 for a family of four represent 21.1% of the population (“Child Poverty,” n.d.). The National Lunch Act and its subsequent revisions have sought to mitigate the effects of hunger. Unfortunately, there are other circumstances that affect the desired outcomes of serving a balanced meal to students in need.

Childhood obesity is a serious health issue currently affecting America’s population. School lunches have gained a spotlight in the search for prevention of child obesity because the majority of America’s youth eat two school meals a day during most of the year. Although the nutritional standards of school meals have been changed over the years, there is still room for improvement. With additions such as a la cart and vending machines, school meals quickly fall from the federal nutrition standards. As children grow they spend an average of 7 hours a day at school over half of the year. With almost 95% of America’s children attending school, it is one of the most stable and influential aspects of their life. With so much of a child’s time spent

The goals,is to improve school food, teach nutrition, support sustainable food systems, and create an education program focused on understanding the relationships between food, culture, health, and the environment.By the time today’s kindergartner finishes high school, she may have eaten well over 4,000 school meals—4,000 opportunities to strengthen her body and mind, introduce food pleasures that will make her a lifelong healthy eater, and deepen her engagement with the natural world. The more than 5.5 billion lunches and nearly 2 billion breakfasts served yearly in school programs, along with complementary education programs, can have a profound effect on issues of public health, academic performance, economics, justice, national security,

Childhood obesity is when a child is well overweight for his or her age. One of the main causes are dietary patterns. According to the Center of Disease and Control Prevention, almost half of the United States middle and high schools advertise foods with high sugars, fats and salts. In addition to that, they also have a high calorie count. This makes it very difficult for students to make healthy choices. The first large school lunch project began in Boston high schools in 1894. Ever since then the government has claimed that they have been providing nutritious lunches for students. Between 1894 and 1977….. but in 1977 according to food timeline, America’s school lunches are the reflection of student’s food habits. The general accounting officer argues that, “The government subsidized school lunch served to 25 million American School Students may be harmful to their health”. This means that the unhealthy meals that are served to our students are not nutritious. He also argues that it creates sustenance for some of our children but it may lead to obesity in others due to the large portion sizes and the decrease amount of supplemental nutrients. Because America has cut spending on school lunches, they have only been able to provide a limited amount of healthy options to schools. Over time the quality of nutrition has went down and now we are at the point where we have no choice but to take action on

About 220 billion lunches have been served since President Truman’s signing of the National School Lunch Act in 1946. However, according to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine study, about 36% of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight and 20% are obese. The rate of obesity has risen since the 1940’s, but school lunch has made revisions to create meals to be healthier and more nutritionally dense for the child. Research has shown overweight people are only becoming more overweight and normal weight people are staying the same or developing healthier lifestyle

The goal of any educational institution should be to have postive impacts on the whole child. Nutrition is one aspect of the whole child that schools could improve upon. For a variety of reasons, there is a disconnect between the educators of a school building and those responsible for student’s nutrition. At school, students have a unqiue opportunity to make decisions about their nutrition, with the assistance of their parent in some cases. The following literature review investigates the National School Lunch Program in its effects on childhood obesity. The workshop to follow offers a plan to help impact childhood obesity through family education.

About one in three american students who eat school lunches daily are in some way obese or overweight as of 2015. People in general have been experiencing a new problem in the last decade; obesity rates have been drastically increasing. School lunches may be a big contributor to these increasing percentages in overweight and obesity. The percentages have increased about 18% from tests in 1973 to 1974, to tests in 2003 to 2004. Many schools in other countries have a lower obesity rate because they server non processed foods. If schools were to change their lunches to non

Being the petty teenager I am, I decided to research the weaknesses revolving around America's current public school lunch program after getting into an argument regarding the healthfulness of school meals. I was called a picky eater for virtually refraining school meals from entering my diet for the past few years, whereas I concluded that a majority of my peers would agree that our school lunch program is far from desirable. To support my claim, I began to research school lunches and its correlation to child obesity. I also went into detail on the impact of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act and how governmental mandates have shaped our system. However, I also discussed the unhealthy and wasteful mindset about food our children obtain and carry from their experiences as a student. Finally, I critiqued the school meal programs of other modern countries to help point out possible approaches to fixing the system.

Increasing fruit consumption in school lunchrooms could be as simple as offering smaller-sized pieces that children can easily hold, bite, and chew (T. Baranowski, 1999, N. Bonnhoff, 2002). This ties into the larger project of evaluating the environmental strategies the school employs to encourage healthy eating and observes if such a strategy actually increases the consumption of fruit at the school lunchrooms. Similar evaluations can be used to asses if vegetable, milk or whole grain consumption is increasing and this can help answer some of the larger scale issues around obesity in the Ravenswood City School District. Scaling up this type of evaluation can further investigate whether a bite size fruit portions or strategic serving of vegetables might improve fruit and vegetable consumption in other places, such as companies, hospitals, and senior living homes. It also offers opportunity for policy change in the way the myplate guidelines are presented to children and schools can take steps to make fruits and vegetables more enticing to children.

Lunches served at schools throughout the United States play a large role in childhood obesity. In 2012, a study showed that the percentage rate of children who were diagnosed with obesity in the United States had risen to 33% (Rourke). Obesity has only grown since, and will continue to grow if changes are not implemented not only in the home, but in the school lunch program as well. The students who eat school lunches are proven to have a higher obesity rate compared to those who prepare a lunch at home and bring it to school (Rourke). This shows that students who have the option to eat healthier have a decreased rate

Lunch is one of the most anticipated thirty minutes of most students day. They get to converse with their friends and finish neglected homework, but what the students look forward to is the food they get to eat. In special classes(Health, Nutrition) we learn about healthy eating and dieting; unless you pack your own lunch, we must suffer and endure the unhealthy and sometimes disgusting school lunches. Schools should improve the nutritional value in our foods for many reasons; mainly for the fact that childhood obesity is a rising problem in the U.S.

While studies have and will always continue to be conducted all over the world regarding school lunch programs and their effect on children’s health, one study in the Michigan area concluded some alarming statistics. Children who ate school lunch compared to children who did not eat school lunch were more likely to be overweight, and have higher levels of cholesterol

Federally-funded school meal programs, including the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP), serve an average of 31.3 million lunches and 11.1 million breakfasts per day at a cost to the country of $11.1 billion in 2011 (Food & Nutrition Services, 2012). These federally-funded meals are an excellent opportunity for regulation of nutrition as well as education regarding healthy choices. Obesity is clearly a great threat to the health of our nation, and the federal government must step in to defend its citizens against this growing threat. Children are at the mercy of their families, their social conditions, and their schools, predisposing them to obesity through poor nutritional options and a lack of education; the federal government must intervene through regulation of school meals and snacks to protect children from the abundance of unhealthy options while also educating them and reducing childhood obesity.