Childhood obesity has grown at an alarming rate since the 1970’s. That’s around the time the food industry slowly began changing the food served in our schools. They added more processed foods like French Fries, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs and Pizza. I agree these foods taste good, but it has caused our parents, who were in school in the 70’s, and our generation to continue to make bad decisions on food selection. This problem still continues to this day. Right now I can see that as time passed by, most of my cousins aren’t very healthy. According to an article called Obesity by Scott Barbour in 2011, 1/3 of children are overweight or obese. I hope to change your opinion, and help you see that with an early start of healthy food choices in our schools, our kids will grow up to be smarter and healthier.
As young kids, before we start kindergarten, our parents gave us food, we ate it because they would eat it along with us. If they gave us healthy or unhealthy food, we didn’t know the difference. All we knew is whether we liked it or not. Most parents gave us a combination of both, some of us chose not to eat the healthy stuff.
Some school lunches are healthy, some are not. Some kids would rather bring their own lunch than buy it at the school. As kids get older, they become more aware of their bodies and health concerns some of the other students have. According to an article called America’s Unhealthy Lifestyle by Ellyn Sanna in 2006, if a kid is overweight, he may have a possibility of diabetes and asthma.
About half of the food a student eats in a day is at school. Parents have to share the blame for unhealthy food choices their children make. Some kids will usually complain to their parents like “I don’t like vegetables” so they give them cookies. Some parents stick with healthy choices and only allow unhealthy foods on special occasions like birthdays and holidays. I feel that special occasion treat is something a school should consider.
Many of the older kids will be able to relate to the issued of healthy foods, because they will be able to understand the outcome of unhealthy choices. They will be able to see the difference in a picture or video of their parents when they were young and what they may look like today. This would be very clear to them seeing the problem first hand and if still not sure, ask your parents or loved ones if they think unhealthy choices has made their lives and body much worse. I think most will agree.
There are many