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Essay On Childhood Obesity In America

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Childhood Obesity in America

Many believe that childhood obesity is caused by the intake of foods high in sugar, but really the cause of childhood obesity is caused by poor nutrition, lack of education and over eating foods high in calories. Childhood obesity has doubled over the last 30 years and is causing disease such as type II Diabetes or even Cardiovascular Disease which many doctors never thought was possible in children. Can our schools do a better job of educating our children about proper nutrition and should all parents be required to take nutrition classes along with their children? One area that is commonly overlooked by most is our children’s school cafeterias that have been taken over by large food manufactures and provide cheap frozen foods that need only a microware or an oven to prepare. Our school cafeterias serve 7 billion meals, lunch and breakfast, to our children a year, and in some cases, this may be the one meals a child will …show more content…

By the 1990s, private food companies had made it easy for schools to purchase bulk "airplane meal packs" by providing schools with the freezers and ovens to accommodate them. No skilled on-site labor necessary, and no need to dip into the school's budget to finance and maintain real kitchen equipment (Ken).
School Cafeterias have become big business for large companies and they only care about profit and not the health of the children. Many kids are receiving two meals a day from their school cafeteria, and in some case these are the only meals a kid will receive in the entire day. These types of food choice are driving unhealthy expectation about food. they are not meeting our children’s nutritional needs, and they are a factor in causing obesity in our

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