Essay on Delicious Killings

One of the most controversial issues today is the question of how to address childhood obesity. Because of the large proportion of meals that children, particularly low-income children, consume in schools, cafeteria food has been targeted by dietary reformers as in need of a major overhaul. However, while many different types of new school menus have been proposed, the extent to which healthier foods can be offered remains controversial. Opponents to reform state that children will not eat healthier lunches, and that changing the food that children eat will have minimal impact, since the children will either bring food from home or eat food at home that is more 'kid friendly.'

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.

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

America’s lunch program has been established ever since President Harry S. Truman signed the National School Lunch Act on June 4, 1946 in order to ensure the health of children. (Rafidi 1) Providing lunches for students is essential in order for them to receive the nutrition they need but if one think deeper about this, is the current lunch program really beneficial towards the youth that will soon shape the future? Just recently in 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama stepped up hoping to maintain the growing problem of childhood obesity by inspecting the food that was sold in schools. In a 60 years time frame, school lunch has become an issue that was once thought to help reduce malnutrition to food that may be harmful to teens’ body. This should

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.

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.

Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. What do all of these have in common? They can all be a result of poor nutrition in one’s diet (“The Risks of Poor Nutrition”). In efforts to improve the overall health and wellness of children in America, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was implemented during the Obama administration. This act directly altered the nutritional standards and quality of the food that is served in public schools (Vilsack). The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is beneficial to students’ health because it provides the necessary nutrients needed to live healthy lifestyles.

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

​The issue of nutritious meals for children has become a common topic in the media in the last several years. “Significant excess body weight affects over 25 per cent of children in developed economies…” (Hawkes and Lobstein, 2011), which presents one of the major markers for poor nutrition- childhood obesity’s prevalence. Although there have been highly publicized pushes for our children to be healthier, such as Michelle Obama’s school lunch program, American children are faced with a future that paints them as being unable to become anything but obese and nutritionally deficit. Changing the content and eating behaviors of children can “...prevent immediate health problems as well as promote a healthy lifestyle…[which may] reduce the risk of a child developing a chronic condition…later in life.” (Brown, 2011). Essentially, the focus has become preventing health problems rather than treating them after disease onset.

Many kids around the world often play outside with each other; whether that be at a playground or in a back yard. Though, in America, the majority of young people own some type of electronic. Instead of burning calories playing outside, kids decide waste their energy playing games on their devices. According to the USA Today, “One of every three children in the United States is overweight or obese”(USA Today). With the population constantly growing, and the kids getting lazier and lazier, the numbers of obese children is only going to increase. The government can help America by changing kid’s diets. The only way the government can manage what kids consume is through school. Changing school’s lunch menus will be a great start, since many schools in the United States do not provide nutritious meals, In fact, the University of Washington asked a handful of middle schools and high schools to participate in a study. The study compared the meal standards before and after menu changes. The professors then calculated the meal standards using the meals’ adequacy ratio (MAR) and concluded, “The nutritional quality increased by nearly 30%, from a MAR of 58.7 before the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act to 75.6 after implementation”(Chen). The scientists achieved this drastic increase to the meals’ adequacy ratio just by providing a healthy variety of foods and reducing portion sizes.

Nationally, about 17% of people under the age of 20, about 12.5 million are considered obese. School districts that serve students food that are high in calories and fat are to blame for the growing numbers of obese children. Although school lunches provide students food at minimal costs, the poor quality of food served delivers inadequate nutrition and is responsible for the rising numbers of obese minors in the United States. In order to combat this growing problem, school districts must limit student choices in the lunchroom and provide healthier food nationally. Although some school districts may argue this, it is necessary to do so as school districts in Pennsylvania and Mississippi and university studies support this claim.

Researchers say they have identified yet another risk factor for childhood obesity: school lunch. Usually, lunchtime is a kid’s favorite time of day at school because they receive a chance to socialize with their friends. However, the cafeteria, where children enjoy spending most of their time, is also a place that exposes them to harmful eating habits, such as the unhealthy foods the cafeteria offers which can influence them to continue wanting to eat these foods and may change the way these kids live their lifestyle in the future. The government should impose restrictions on foods in schools cafeterias to comply with food safety standards. It has been quite popular the last decade to take parental responsibility out of the school and leave

Dietary influences such as such lunch options are a major cause of childhood obesity. Unfortunately, many schools all over the country continue to offer unhealthy food in their cafeterias. In the mid-1900s, The National School Program, a federally assisted program, began giving schools millions of dollars annually for nourishing, free lunch. According to Barry Yeoman in the article "School Lunches Cause Childhood Obesity,” “Enacted in 1946, the program is supposed to provide healthy meals to children, regardless of income. At the same time, however, it 's designed to subsidize agribusiness, shoring up demands for beef and milk...” In other words, students are still being offered great amounts of dairy and beef, which are high in saturated fats. Saturated fats significantly contribute to obesity and

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.