Improving The Lunch System: A Case Study

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Overweight and obesity rates are still concerning us after improving the lunch system. According to the staff and faculty of the school, the kids are having adequate physical activity but have they witnessed that their diets are still poor. Some of them are bringing their own lunches and snacks from home, which usually are not the healthy options containing high amounts of sugar and fat. If they bring those choices from home, it is very probable that their diets at home are poor. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that childhood obesity prevalence has stayed the same high rates in the last decade after tripling in the last few decades. In the year 2011-2012, 17% of children in US were obese. 32% were either overweight or obese. They also showed that low-income and low-education homes are more likely have poor diets. According to the CDC some of the possible short-term consequences and risks include physical problems like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, impaired blood sugar, and joint and muscle problems. Psychological and emotional problems include low self-esteem and depression. Also social problems are involved such as having a lower quality of life by having issues at school and social life. Children that are overweight and obese now are more likely to be as well when they are adults. The long-term consequences of this problem is adult obesity and increasing risks of developing diseases like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, metabolic diseases, and some cancers. An obese child becoming and obese adult has much higher risks of diseases than a healthy child becoming and an obese adult. Causes of the problem at this school does not appear to be linked to reduced physical activity, but more to the children’s behavior and their environments. The main causes are poor diet patterns at home, advertising of high calorie foods and drinks, increased portion sizes in the community, and low-income households. Also genetics is an inevitable factor. Low-income families and parents with low education are the main barriers for treating obesity because they may have limited resources. When trying to create a program that will be used across a district to help improve the diets of children, it is that much more difficult when you factor in cultural and diversity issues. This is because food and culture share a bond that is so strong, it is impossible to be successful without taking it into consideration. The best nutrition program for schools could be designed but if cultural diversity is not factored in, then students will not respond and continue to bring their own lunches. The first of these problems is that there are so many different cultures and each of these has a different relationship with food and nutrition. This makes designing the program difficult because you want to be able to reach as many students as possible but be realistic at the same time. It is not realistic to accommodate every culture, but it is possible to study into the student population and design our program to reach as many as possible. Another important aspect of this program is that there should be a wide variety of options available to the students. For example, if a student is vegetarian, there should be vegetarian options and if a student can’t eat certain meats, then a different protein option should be available. Another issue that can arise from cultural diversity and our nutrition program is that certain cultures have different perspective on what they consider “healthy” and “unhealthy”. It is a challenge to reach out and make …show more content…
Kids are bringing lunches from home but the foods they bring are poor choices. To help find a solution to this problem, a meeting should be held with the parents because it all starts from home and I want to educate them about nutrition and types of foods their kids should eat. I would develop a nutrition program and include the parents because at the end of the day they buy the groceries. “Children’s fruit consumption and vegetable consumption is higher when there are parents who eat more fruits and vegetables in the house” (American journal of health education,

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