A．Banning all types of soda drinks in schools,B．Adding ……
The world seems to be going diet crazy, and yet our nation"s obesity rate has shot up year after year. And, it"s not only the over 20 population that has to worry about their weight anymore. Children from kindergarten to twelfth grade are also experiencing the problems of an overweight lifestyle.
According to the website cosmiverse.com, 11% of adolescents are categorized as being over-weight, and another 16% are in danger of becoming overweight. This is a 60% jump from the 1980"s.
Some of the blame is being put on schools wanting to fit more academic classes into the children"s schedule rather than waste time on physical education. This new take on education has left us with physical activity at an all-time national low, resulting in obesity and poor physical conditioning at an all-time national high. The schools have tried a few solutions; the most recent in the news has been taking soda out of schools and increasing the required time children must be active during school.
Will those methods help at all Education is important at school, but starts at home. I believe students are getting their bad habits from watching their parents and how they eat and exercise. The school system only helps to hinder the child"s dietary eating. I know there are studies showing genes that determine how a child will be built. That does not explain however, why the rate continues to increase at such a rapid rate each year. It seems more likely that more and more families have both parents working, leaving their children to their own means for a meal.
"Nintendo, TV, Playstation and the like," are what Physical Education teacher, Sue Arostegui, attributes the inactiveness to. "Parents are either gone or too scared with today"s society to let them out and play."
Classes on health need to become more regular and sports need to be encouraged. At Live Oak High School the staff does a good job of teaching how to eat and exercise to stay healthy. The freshmen study health every Wednesday in RE., and Para James teaches healthy eating and food preparation in Home Economics for the first few weeks of every school year.
"Kids have no idea how many calories they are eating," said James of the overweight problems facing students. "Fast food is becoming more popular, it"s easier and parents are busy. They are only setting their kids up to gain weight with that diet however."
School cafeterias are also getting blamed for the students" eating habits. "Healthy eating should start at home," said L.O.H.S. cafeteria cool Brenda Myers. "Too many kids are being raised on fast food. After eating so much fast food they don"t have any tastes for real home cooked food. I always have healthy foods for students, but they are less likely to eat them."
Other schools do not even have the type of programs Live Oak offers and are suffering even worse consequences. Sports keep students fit and healthy. There need to be more readily available sports programs for anyone who would like to join. Many students when they feel they do not meet the standards for a team will admit defeat and drop off the team: There needs to be a program that all students will be interested in and continue through for the entire season.
Schools can only do and be blamed for so much however, and it will be up to the parents to become more aware of what activities their children are participating in and how healthy they are eating. Until that happens, I foresee the obesity rate continuing on its uphill curve.What is the trend in education that has led to an increase in obesity
A．Banning all types of soda drinks in schools,
B．Adding more academic classes at the expense of physical education.
C．No readily available sports programs for everyone.
D．The tendency to neglect courses on healthy eating.
