Preventing Childhood Obesity And The National School Lunch Program

“In 2001, the Surgeon General 's ‘Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity’ identified obesity as a key public health priority for the United States. Obesity rates were higher than ever, with 61% of adults nationwide overweight or obese (Brownell and Novak).” “ At present, approximately nine million children over 6 years of age are considered obese”(Koplan and Liverman). With the gravity of this situation well known, according to the public’s acknowledgement in these surveys, it is apparent and an accepted notion that things must be changed. Presumably one might think that it is as simple as that; that just like that things will change. In 2008 childhood obesity ranked number one of the biggest issues for problems concerning children in numerous states including New York. In conclusion ideas came about such as financing special menus and labels that publicize the health factors of food, but later polls show that “although 83 percent of New York State residents agree that childhood obesity is a major problem, more than a third refuse to pay even $10 a year in higher taxes to cut childhood obesity in half” (Cawley). These programs and new policies require excessive funding not even including publicizing them and enforcing them. This will inevitably lead to a tax increase or in addition money being drawn from other pressing issues. Money will be coming out of the pocket of each citizen from taxes along with an expected decrease in fast food and other

Childhood obesity has reached epidemic levels in the United States as well as in many other industrialized nations. Childhood obesity, though, is not limited to affluent countries and is increasingly being found in developing nations as well. Although diet plays an important role in exacerbating the problem, the failure to make healthy choices in food selections is not the only problem. One of the unfortunate consequences of innovations in telecommunications and video game technologies has been an increasingly sedentary lifestyle for many American youths, a trend that has been further reinforced by participation in social media networks. In this environment, it is little wonder that many young people become overweight, but the implications of obesity in childhood have lifetime implications, making the need for studies of childhood obesity and the identification of evidence-based interventions a timely and relevant enterprise. To this end, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning childhood obesity, the stakeholders that are involved and several potential evidence-based interventions that have proven effective in the past. Finally, a list of policy recommendations based on this analysis is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

The NSLP is “a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. The program was established under the National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946” (National). It was created after a study was conducted by congress into why so many young men did not meet the requirements of the WWII draft. It was found that there was a connection between physical deficiencies and malnutrition during adolescence. After the study was published, the government took it upon itself to regulate what children ate. Its focus has now been shifted from battling malnutrition to battling childhood obesity, yet there are plenty of statistics that denote childhood obesity is not caused entirely by poor food choices.

Will The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act recently signed into law on December 13, 2010 by President Barack Obama be able to deliver healthier meals in the schools nutrition programs or will the bill overwhelm struggling school districts with additional unfunded mandates? Schools confront difficult issues on a daily basis that affect the learning ability of their students: struggling economic conditions, students from poor families, increased food insecurity across the country, and constant pressures to increase student performance. Providing healthy meals for children, who otherwise would eat poorly or not at all, is a necessity that our country has recognized and planned for many decades. Two measures authorized

Cookie Monster sang about cookies and sweets for over 30 years and some say that was a

Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was signed into law by President Barak Obama on December 13, 2010. This act reauthorizes many child nutrition programs including the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs (NSLP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), the Summer Food Service Program, the Afterschool Meal Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed). NCSL,2011).

Public schools attempt to provide a healthy school lunch with money provided from the federal government. The federal government provides a little over $3 per student (Siegel). Districts are generally left to pay the bills that maintain the cafeteria which reduce the amount of money that the school has to fund the lunches (Siegel). School lunches may have links to obesity, which leads to the question what type of food are our children eating at school, and what type of effects are caused from school lunches. Going into research has opened my eyes to realize that school lunches are not always the best but it helps to feed the students who are not able to be provided a lunch from home.

Roni Caryn Rabin, The author of Childhood: Obesity and School Lunches, states "those who regularly had the school lunch were 29 percent more likely to be obese than those who brought lunch from home" In my opinion, homemade food is more healthy than the lunches provide by the schools (Rabin). I don’t know much about the author, because the link they have, only send me to a blank page. For this reason, I would think is not a trustful site. I google the name but the only information it pop up was work published by her. In fact there is not much information on her personal life or career life.

There have been on occasion when I was at grade school that I have seen at least one of the teachers giving a student money for the student’s lunch. Another close encounter that I can recall is when one of my close friends couldn’t afford a school lunch and I told her I would share my free lunch with her, and that we could just split the whole thing, thus she wouldn’t go famished through the rest of the school day. There has to be way more incidences such as these in Americas public schools because these public schools are reporting that they lose an estimate of about $350,000.00 dollars in school funds annually in unpaid debts , and one of those reasons is teacher giving students money when the students need it. If we could provide free lunches

When I was younger, I vividly remember the vast amount of delicious food that was offered every day in my school lunchroom. The food that I use to describe as “good” food, I am beginning to undoubtedly recognise for the unhealthy junk that it actually is. There are countless others who also notice how horrible these foods are to feed children in school cafeterias. Today, those same cafeterias are tremendously different from the ones I remember from when I was little, and they are always continuously changing. The amount of options we are offered have not lessened, they have simply changed. Instead of having the option to purchase nachos, we now are given the option of baked fries. Also, instead of having a dessert of an innutritious brownie, we now are given a large variety of sweet fruits to choose from instead. While some students distinguish these changes as a catastrophe, I can understand the importance of having students skip dessert during a school lunch. Allowing the NSLP to regulate what is served in school lunches would help parents trust that their children would be getting healthier foods at school, help to combat the epidemic of obesity and malnutrition in the United States, and assist in educating children on healthy diet choices.

Even though many students consume most of their calories off campus, studies show that school districts that serve healthy school meals and limit foods low in nutritional value have lower rates of obesity. The state of Philadelphia reported a 5.5% drop in obesity rates of students in their school districts. California reported a 5% drop and New York a 4% drop. These numbers were collected between 2007 through 2012 (Eagle). Researchers are unclear of the reasons behind the decrease in obesity. However, what these states all have in common is that they are all fighting the battle of obesity through stricter lunch options. The School District of Pennsylvania established new lunch policies in 2004. With the implementation of the new policies, deep fryers were disposed after the district stopped buying oil to fill them. Whole milk was superseded by skim milk. The district also put limits on the size of chip bags and got rid of unhealthy foods and soft drinks that were previously served. Through 2011 and 2012, the School District of Philadelphia reported another 2.5% decrease in obesity prevalence of students. The district regularly takes measurements of students throughout the school year. The decreases of overweight children in the School

Thirdly, the self-knowledge to prevent obesity is another issue. For the children, their parents’ knowledge of appropriate food will directly affect them, since their schools mainly focus on the academics of the children, and rarely on dietary education. If the parents gain knowledge to pick up healthy food for their children, their children will eat healthier and vice versa. As Cluss et al. (2013) stressed, the parents with low social economic status revealed a lack of knowledge regarding the nutrition values in common food. They just provide their children with any food that is accessible and cheap. Consequently, the children who live in low-income families represented a large portion of childhood obesity. Especially in New York City, the prevalence of childhood obesity is high in Hispanic and Black boys which may be associated with higher amount of children live in lower socioeconomic status and lack of knowledge to prevent obesity. (Thorpe et al., 20014).

According to the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, the goal of the National School Lunch Program is “to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children and to

Based on what I read in this chapter, it is clear that all change is inevitable and cyclical because new challenges are constantly arising in foodservice. The text mentions that losing employees due to wage competition, competition for the local supermarkets, or due to unsatisfied clientele. In addition to these challenges, technology evolves everyday, which means foodservice operation must keep up with the change. Another inevitable change is the possibility of having a war, which would cause economic conditions to be changed. All of these examples are changes that must be fixed in order to ensure success of the company.

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