School Lunch and Breakfast Programs

School Lunch and Breakfast Programs

Introduction

There are many ways to help school going children, and one of them rather one of the most important ways to help them is to ensure that they are properly fed which would enable them to lead a healthy and happy lives. It would not be fair to expect these children to engage in learning with their full hearts and minds until their nutritional needs are being met by the adults in charge of them. Mostly children rush to school hungry; who wants breakfast when they can sleep an extra fifteen minutes? In school, there is “no time” for proper lunch breaks or recess. A combination of all these factors negatively impacts their ability to learn and grow, physically as well as mentally, and no amount of emphasis is adequate enough to stress upon the importance of these children taking nutritious meals to keep their bodies and mind healthy (www.ers.usda.gov, 2012). Poor nutrition and a lack in physical activities for the youth today are leading factors in the contribution of obesity and other chronic diseases. A study in 2006 carried out by Y.C. Wang et al, found that there has been a sharp rise in child obesity rates, of children aged 6 to 11 years in between the years 1988 and 2002. The study further detailed that this could have been prevented if the average intake of daily calories could have been reduced by 110 to 165 calories.

Discussion

Nowadays, we as a society are surrounded by people, old and young, falling victim to problems like obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and weak bones leading to emotional, mental and social issues due to a lack of proper nutrition. The French author La Rochefoucauld highlighted that although eating is a basic necessity for humans, but to “eat intelligently” can be considered as an art, thus pointing towards the fact that people have forgotten how to eat healthy, a statement which holds doubly true for our contemporary society. A healthy and nutritious environment is not all about food and the choice of beverages presented in the “lunch line.” It includes scheduling of meals properly, the serving time, physical activity, fund raisers for food and beverages, and a general message about the benefits of eating healthy and physical activity promoted by schools. If parents and students display an interest in their commitment towards eating and drinking healthy along with increased physical activities, then many schools will be driven to promote such behavior as well (Hellmich, 2012). These include:

1.Physical activity as well as nutritional food and beverages plans.

2.Increased quality of meals served in schools.

3.Promotion of healthy food options.

4.Pleasant eating experience.

5.Education about nutritional values in food and beverages.

6.Constant promotion of health messages.

The Process and Benefits of School Lunch Programs

The main reason why awareness needs to be created with regard to health and nutrition programs to provide for an environment which is wholly inductive to learning. In our modern society, many families lead a hectic lifestyle due to which they mainly ...