Leverage Norte Case Study

Sugar contains enormous amount of calories which gets deposited in your body parts in a very rigid manner. A can of soda (carbonated drink) contains about 39 gram of sugar which is actually 140 calories in a single drink! Usually people consume 3-4 drink which results in 420 calorie bulge every day, rest is obtained from the meals of the day. Avoid these drinks along with the sugary snacks you consume on daily basis.

Everyone loves sugar filled snacks, especially children. A kid’s day can be made so much better just by handing them their favorite candy bar. This is something students looked forward to during their school day. Sadly, this was made to change. Schools started banning snacks, and drinks based on their unhealthy effect they have on individuals. According to Beverly Ballaro and Ann Griswold in "Junk Food in Schools: An Overview,” this change occurred when Michelle Obama launched her project for healthy eating in 2010. Let’s Move! Was her way to fix child obesity in America. This directed schools to feed children healthier options, and twice as many vegetables or fruit. This was not a necessity for public schools across the United States. Students should not be limited to what they eat in school. As long as they are being fed their basic lunch, it should not be important what they decide to snack on.

The organization of Debatewise stated that controlling the foods that students consume is important in combating obesity, as the dieting habits that most people form originate from when they were young. This is why it’s so crucial for schools to introduce healthier options in schools. If these unhealthy habits are developed, the students are “at higher risk for having other chronic health conditions and diseases that impact physical health..”, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These conditions can affect them emotionally and physically, including depression and obesity, which are important health issues both linked with the consumption of junk foods. The selling of junk food in schools is not a small problem either, as it concludes from a study by the Institute of Medicine in 2003 that elementary schools earn approximately $442 million annually from junk food sales. The importance of changing the school lunch programs to implement healthier options is high when there is so much money being spent by the students. Although obesity is a real problem due to the selling of junk food, it can lead to other problems that leading a healthier way of living could fix. For instance, the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension states junk foods, due to processing that removes vitamins, minerals, and fiber from the product, are empty calories that are ultimately worthless to the body. This alone contributes to unneeded weight gain and provides no additional sustenances that help the body grow. The Harvard Health Publications describes this to be a serious problem, and acknowledge not only this to be a complication, but mentions the unnecessarily high amounts of sodium levels in the foods, stating that “...the average

Snacking is eating a small portion of food before or in between meals. According to Interdisciplinary Center for Obesity at the University of North Carolina, "The increases [in snacking] that we found between the 1980s and '90s have, if anything, accelerated towards eating more times a day, and we see no evidence that's going to slow down." (washington post) Children are eating more frequently but more alarming is the fact they are eating unhealthy junk food. Typical snacking foods include salty foods- like chips and pretzels, candy- chocolate and non chocolate, cookies, crackers, popcorn, pastries- donut and cake, and soda. Snacking is acceptable but healthy and light snacks will help prevent child obesity. The purpose of a snack is to provide some energy in between meals so a big snack will ruin their appetite. The ‘mini-meal’ should be healthy and sizeable, like cheese and crackers or vegetables with hummus, not desserts, like

By replacing soft drinks with healthier beverages, many toxins will be eliminated. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends that people eating 1,600 calories a day not eat more than six teaspoons a day of refined sugar, 12 teaspoons for those eating 2,200 calories,

In the article Dr Francesco Branca discusses how there is strong evidence that by keeping free sugars to less than 10% of your energy intake reduces the risk of obesity. Many free sugars we consume everyday are hidden in foods like ketchup which has about 1 teaspoon of sugar. Obesity is a huge problem in America and sugar is a key contributor. Scientific evidence has found people who lower their sugar intake have lower body weight, while people who have increased their sugar intake have higher body weight. The recommend amount of sugar intake is 6 teaspoons a day I think people easily go over this considering 1 can of sugar-sweetened soda contains around 10 teaspoons of sugar.

Obese children have been found to have health problems, such as, “chronic health conditions and diseases that impact physical health, such as asthma, sleep apnea, bone and joint problems, type 2 diabetes, and risk factors for heart disease.” (CDC). Also, according to the CDC, obesity as a child leads to obesity as an adult. Obesity as an adult is dangerous, as it can cause, “serious conditions and diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and several types of cancer.” (CDC) What the CDC found shows us all why we should start a healthy food now before it is too late to help a child’s future. Healthier school lunches prevent child obesity, saving them from disease and ailments in the future. The AMDF, or the American Macular Degeneration Foundation, studied the effects of junk food on the eyes. They found that certain foods, including highly processed snacks, peanut butter, and french fries are dangerous for a child’s eyesight. They found that, “Overindulging in fat-filled snack foods may heighten the risk of developing advanced age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness and vision impairment in the United States for those over 55, researchers at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary said in a new study.” They present that junk food is a serious problem and can lead to AMD. One way to avoid this, according to the AMDF is by feeding children omega-3 fatty acids which are great for eyesight. Healthier school lunches not only help save a child’s future, but also help save their eyesight. Preventing students from buying these unhealthy products can help to reduce the risk of AMD in adulthood, as well as protect against many other types of illness. According to WebMD and Medi Weight Loss, obesity leads to,

The primary goal of my behavior change project was not to eliminate my sugar intake entirely, but to cut back on the amount of sugar that I consumed per day to a healthier amount. Before this project, I was consuming 1-2 twelve packs of soda per week. Each soda can contains 48g of sugar…that’s 576-1,152g of sugar! According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the maximum amount of added sugars you should eat in a day are (7): Men: 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons). Women: 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons).This is a six week project, in which each week I will decrease my sugar intake, until I reach zero grams of sugar per day.

The young child stands looking up at the tall machine filled with every food he could want and more, stuffed behind the thick glass. How likely is it that he’ll walk past and instead choose a nice crunchy carrot over his Cheetos? Simple choices like these add up over time to make up a lifestyle of habits. A child’s diet is the building block to their health and the nutrition that they intake at school is vital to the rest of their life. Despite previous efforts to reduce the abundance of junk food within school lunch programs, there is still a great need to rethink the availability of caffeine and snacks, saturated in fat that could potentially lead to an array of health issues.

Next, it is shown through the nutrient facts how unhealthy soda is. The daily recommend sugar intake for adult males is 37.5 grams (Gunnars, 2015). The nutrient facts of one single 12 fluid ounce can of Mountain Dew contains 46 grams of sugar (“Calorie Count”, 2016). That is nearly 10 grams higher than what the recommended daily amount. A person would be going over the recommended amount without even considering other foods they ate throughout that day. By the end of the day a person could consume as much as twice the daily recommend amount, if they do not watch what they ate for that day. This simple statistic proves that drinking to many sugary beverages such as soda is not good for your health.

The increasing crisis of obesity and health related problems due to the amount of junk food one consumes is slowly, but surely becoming a problem in America. For decades, the food we consume has developed for the worse; food is not grown locally anymore and has many added preservatives and additives. One of the main reasons as to why there is an increase of obesity is related to the amount of sugar one will consume in a meal. Sarah Richards creates a well thought out article pulling out facts from the HOA about the effects sugar has on someone.

As you already know, most of the drinks you consume contain sugar. They don’t just have some sugar though; they have a lot of sugar. This does not change the fact that so many people drink sugary drinks. If you look at the diet of a child or adolescent, you would notice that soda is pretty high on the chart for sources of sugar. A survey was taken to see how many Americans drink soda daily. The conclusion of the survey included, the daily diet of 48% of the people contains soda. Lets see what is so bad about sugary drinks and what is a healthy substitute for them.

A typical 20- ounce soda contains 15 to 18 teaspoons of sugar. A 64 ounce soft drink contains about 700 calories. Sugary drinks increase the risk of obesity. People consume sugary drinks regularly a day are at 26% greater risk of being overweight than those who do not drink sugary drinks. Studies in children

One way schools can decrease childhood obesity is to prepare healthy meals and encourage children to eat healthy in and outside school. In order to prevent childhood obesity, school should provide healthier lunches because children spend more time in school than in their homes. “Good nutrition is essential to student health. That means replacing junk food with more fruits, vegetables and meals prepared with nutritious ingredients.” (healthy schools campaign) Schools should provide fresh food that is prepared in school and provides sufficient nutrients that children need in their meals. Therefore, cookies, ice cream and donuts should avoid in schools because they have low nutritional value.

Children should not be consuming excessive amounts of junk –food as it has high health risks.