School nutrition policy can prevent obesity

Obesity in the United States has continued to grow within the last few years, and people have become determined to prevent the problem in its early stages. This article reveals the dramatic change that occurred when schools began to regulate their student’s diets.
When student’s are at school and are craving a snack their options are limited to the vending machines that sell nothing but sweet, fatty, and salty foods. Kids spend about 6-7 hours at school and are bound to purchase these unhealthy items. This article proves what a change schools can make by adjusting a little thing like the items being sold in the vending machines. Another approach the school took was educating the students on why they were removing certain items, and what those products were doing to their health. The article explains here that once the school did this they were able to cut the obesity rate in half. “Among the 1,349 students Foster's team followed from fourth to sixth grade. As mentioned, there was about a 50percent reduction in the incidence (new cases) of overweight at the end of 2 years among the children attending the program schools, while no changes were seen among the children attending the schools without a program.”(Amy Norton)
If the government were to take control of this situation the rate of obesity in children would drop considerably. I’m aware that many people would argue that the government shouldn’t be able to control people’s diets, but on the other hand children in schools aren’t being given any other options in the vending machines besides the unhealthy foods. Another problem is schools are contradicting themselves by having health classes that teach children to snack on fruits and vegetables versus candy bars and chips. Then they turn around and only give the students the option of snacking on unhealthy items that are being sold in vending machines. In order to make a change schools need to practice both methods; teach the students what to do and then actually give them the chance to make the right decisions.
This is a simple answer to a huge problem. If we just train children when they are younger and provide healthy items to snack on in school we can prevent bad snacking habits and obesity. It will take a while, but eventually children will learn to snack on fruits and vegetables just like they learned to snack on the unhealthy items in the vending machines.





http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080416/hl_nm/school_obesity_dc