As childhood obesity becomes
increasingly prevalent among students in the United States, the lack of
effective nutrition education in schools remains a huge problem. Although some
view nutrition education as something to be taught in the home, many children
do not receive this knowledge from their parents, resulting in a multitude of
negative effects, such as suffering in school, type II diabetes, high blood
pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Many have sought to discover
what, when, and how the most effective nutrition education is for children. When
children do receive education about wellness and nutrition, it is often limited,
taught outside the normal classroom routine as a special program outside of
normal classroom routine. Schools do not always have the time and resources to
devote to nutrition education programs, as it is not seen as something that
should inherently be taught in schools. Schools today are under pressure to
meet high stakes standards, which make every moment in the classroom valuable. For
those students who fail state testing, health-based education is not viewed as
a means to help him advance in school and is seen as less important.
Health advocates and nutrition
researchers point out that healthy practices and messages should be given at a
young age. Nutrition programs and education can be maximized and are most
effective when introduced at a young age. Without an integrating nutrition
education into the daily curriculum, nutrition education does not seem as
important, putting health as a second-rate concern for children in the United
States. Schools have the unique opportunity to influence children as they
interact and influence students for the first two decades of their life. Because
schools do not always have the means or time to devote to nutrition education, I
became increasingly interested in a book that I read called French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le
Billion. This book discusses how nutrition education is incorporated into
elementary education through their cantina, which is a cafeteria in the United
States. By exposing children to healthy foods and making this food the only
option, kids eat everything. Who ever thought that an elementary school student
would eat a beet salad for lunch? The United States should look to the system
of nutrition education in France as a model for how to reduce the high and
increasing rates of childhood obesity in this country.
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