With vacation and a new semester of teaching, I apologize for my absence but I am ready to get back to blogging on what matters right now, health care reform.
As the kids have headed back to school this week I am so painfully reminded of how unhealthy the school lunch programs are and it has inspired me to choose it as the third suggestion in my series on "Fixing Health Care." With so much emphasis these days on rising childhood obesity, you would think that those in power of choosing the school lunch menus would be trying harder to offer nutritious healthy meals to our nation's children. But instead it is the same "garbage" we saw 20 to 30 years ago; french fries, white bread on sandwiches, french toast and sausage, cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, pizza pockets, the list goes on.
My understanding (or best-guess if you will) is that schools are simply offering what they know kids will eat. Well how about this for an idea; school's can be a place to educate and encourage children to live healthier lives. School's can take responsibility for the fact that they are an integral part of a child's development and recognize the importance of setting good examples that will impact a child's habits and lifestyle for the long-term. You can't spend your childhood eating nothing but fried food and suddenly start eating hummus when you turn 20. It just won't happen. Habits start early and the longer you maintain a habit, the harder it is to break.
I am paraphrasing something from "The Omnivore's Dilemma" where Pollan states the fact that if you don't want your child eating chicken nuggets, then don't offer chicken nuggets. Although this may be a hard concept for many to grasp, our children eat what we offer them. They eat what they see us eat. If you offer them healthy foods (and set the example to eat healthier foods), it may be hard at first, and they may refuse at first, but they will eventually learn that if they want to eat they will eat what you offer.
Taste is acquired. I remember about 10 years ago or so my husband and I were invited to dinner by someone he worked with that just came from Ethiopia. His wife had prepared us a fabulous Ethiopian meal. He told us the food is usually very spicy compared to American food, so they made it milder to suit our taste. Well, if that meal was mild I'd like to know how much more I would have sweat at the regular version! It was quite spicy. I asked what kind of foods they feed their children and they replied, "the same food." It made me realize that children in other countries learn to eat all kinds of foods (and may never know what a chicken nugget is) and accept those foods as their diet. We could do the same.
The childhood obesity rates are rising and so is disease. For the first time in history, doctors are starting to see things like heart disease showing up in teenagers. If you think our health care costs are high now, just wait until the youngest generation grows up after a lifelong diet of chicken nuggets and pizza everyday at school.
Not only does this issue upset me from a general health perspective, it upsets me from a social perspective. Many of our nation's poorest are the one's who most heavily rely on school meals. In some areas, there are schools who have more than 50% of their children on meal voucher programs where they eat both breakfast and lunch at school. Our nation's poorest are the one's who are going without health care and often lack the education to prepare healthy meals. Why not use the opportunity to instill new healthy habits among our nations poorest children so that they may learn how to make healthier meal decisions as they grow up. I am not talking about hand-outs, I am talking about education. Education is the key to rising out of poverty.
And if you are skeptical and think this will cost too much, I can guarantee that the costs of offering healthy meals in school is far cheaper than what we will be paying in health care costs if we allow our nation's children to continue eating the high-fat, highly processed diets they currently consume.
Schools need to take a stand (with parents right beside them) and re-create the school menu's to offer children what they should be eating so that we may teach children healthy habits that will not only last a lifetime, but will help reduce health care costs for us all.
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