ipl-logo

Obesity In American Elementary Schools Essay

915 Words4 Pages

The thought of sitting around all day, not being productive and watching television sounds pleasurable; however, it is not even remotely healthy. Modern day Americans have become accustomed to being unproductive and watching TV for long periods of time while simultaneously eating junk food. Elementary schools have been experiencing a raise in obesity due to the meals the schools provide. American elementary schools have been serving children unhealthy meals and they are consuming more fat than they are fruits or vegetables. Americans need to change school’s menus, increase the amount of physical education courses, and educate children on the idea of burning more calories than consumed. First off, many schools in America have menus that consist …show more content…

Informing adolescents about their health will help develop the children to realize that if they participate in physical condition courses than they will minimize the possibility of becoming obese. Creating classes that target this idea will help educate children about the consequences of consuming a large amount of calories in one sitting. As “School Obesity Prevention” states, “And outside of home life, nothing provides more of an immersive experience for children than the time they spend in school. This means schools have a rich opportunity to improve youth health and tackle obesity at the ideal point in time—before problems take hold” (par. 1). Implementing these health facts into the minds of children will help educate them on the importance of exercising and being aware of what their food contains. Burning more calories than consumed can help minimize the amount of weight one can potentially gain. Children are not educated on their health, which can hinder them from losing weight; however, informing them on how to prevent gaining can help prevent children from becoming obese. Learning new information regarding methods of losing weight is best utilized during school hours, because children will become comfortable at home and will neglect to exercise or watch their

Show More
Related
1225 Words | 5 Pages

government and school districts to enforce state school nutrition laws in order to support elementary students’ physical and mental health, and to effectively improve elementary students’ standardized test scores. Every school year, school leaders gather at the faculty meeting to discuss plans to change all of elementary students’ physical bodies and minds. School leaders also need to conduct more research and rely on helpful resources in order to educate elementary students about nourishment and exercise. Anderson then suggests “a push to combat childhood obesity, [and enforce] the Hunger-Free Kids Act” (2). This new, enforced law, creates an effect that Anderson persuades elementary students to get out of their comfort zone and participate in fitness-based activities, such as running on the treadmill, performing yoga poses, and doing push-ups for muscle endurance.

Read More
425 Words | 2 Pages

Proposal: How can we solve the problem of childhood obesity? A child is considered obese when their weight is twenty percent more than than the ideal weight for their sex, age, and height (University of Michigan). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2012, eighteen percent of children ages six to eleven were obese and twenty-one percent of adolescents ages twelve to nineteen were obese (Childhood Obesity Facts). In 2007 study of 40,000 children, the Food Research and Action Center found that “Obesity rates increased by 10 percent for all U.S. children 10- to 17-years old between 2003 and 2007, but by 23 percent during the same time period for low-income children,” (Relationship).

Read More
249 Words | 1 Pages

Obesity is a major issue that not only adults and adolescents face, but it is an issue that school-aged children face on a daily basis. Parents and school systems often debate the real reason why students are becoming obese or overweight children. Although, the parents have a great argument stating that students spend more time at school rather than at home. So the amount of nutrients that children consume depends on the school. Which raises flags in the food justice and social justice departments.

Read More
672 Words | 3 Pages

Childhood Obesity has become a huge problem faced in America. Children simply eat to many fattening foods and don't get enough exercise. Of course exercise is important to being healthy which is what most people seem to focus on. Although what most people do not know is that diet plays a much bigger role in the health of their children than exercise. Especially considering the fact that our exercise is based on our diet.

Read More
1943 Words | 8 Pages

Obesity rates in the United States have been rising, along with obesity associated health problems, since the 1980’s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just over one-third of U.S. adults, about 97 million, are obese. In addition, as the numbers of obese adults have doubled since 1990, the number of obese children has unfortunately tripled. There has been a clear decline in proper nutrition education in schools in the last 30 years. Classes like home economics are not as prevalent as they once were.

Read More
931 Words | 4 Pages

Lazarou & Kouta (2010) define obesity as “a chronic metabolic disease, considered to be one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular disease”, and state that hypertension, atherosclerosis and type two diabetes have also been shown to be more likely in people with obesity (p. 641). These adult health problems have now become commonplace amongst children and youth today (Tuckwood, 2012). With obesity being diagnosed at earlier ages, prevention becomes increasingly difficult; personal habits are harder to break, health risks are more serious, and the likelihood of living with obesity in adulthood is significantly higher. Fifty percent of children who are obese will become obese adults (Lazarou & Kouta, 2010).

Read More
1782 Words | 8 Pages

The leader of a local collaborative encouraging better nutrition and physical activity at a community level stated, “We need to move away from the health education model. It doesn’t work if the environment conspires against it. We have to make the healthy choice the easy choice.” ( Childhood Obesity Prevention in California, 2008).

Read More
520 Words | 3 Pages

In order to combat America's growing obesity epidemic, we must educate students about healthy food and unhealthy food, because if students get more knowledge about the food they eat, they can avoid getting Obese by eating junk food and do not do exercises. In the past years Americans did not care about unhealthy food; they just ate anything they wanted, a couple years after many people including children got overweight because they ate mostly unhealthy food and the government taxed healthy food. That’s why many people spend more money and junk food instead in healthy food. For example if you go to A fast food restaurant, you can spend $10 dollars and get 8 cheeseburgers, otherwise if you want eat healthy food you have to spend $30

Read More
584 Words | 3 Pages

Childhood obesity is becoming a problem because unhealthy food is now being sold more commonly than healthy food in schools throughout the United States. School systems are the main reason for childhood obesity increasing because of the advertising that they do for these unhealthy food companies. Over 17% of people that are between the ages of 2 to 19 years old are considered obese in the United States. This is caused from competitive foods of becoming more popular throughout school systems (Richards, Christina). “Competitive foods are

Read More
602 Words | 3 Pages

According to Childhood Obesity Facts, offering lunches with more fruits, vegetables, and serving less with sugar and solid fats is a step we can take in order to reduce the rate in childhood obesity. Data from a 2015-2016 study shows that about 1 in 5 children (6-19) are classified as obese, which means they are in the 95th percentile of the average BMI for children that age. Some might say that children are active and will get enough exercise, but if schools do not offer recess and students don’t choose to go and exercise, then unfortunately they might not get the recommended amount to live a healthy, strong

Read More
1317 Words | 6 Pages

With an increasing rate of obesity, all schools should require students to participate in a gym class to teach students about maintaining a healthy living style and to create academic success. When children are in school they need to be in a physical education class to learn how to maintain a healthy living style. Throughout the years, children and young adults have gotten more obese. “About 65 percent of Americans 20 and older are either overweight or obese, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 1999 to 2002” (Kepner, 2008).

Read More
2247 Words | 9 Pages

Fast food restaurants like McDonalds, TV dinners, and other ready to eat foods were becoming a standard in the American society. It only took 30 years for TV dinners to alter Americans’ bodies. In Maryland alone, The America’s Health Rankings published that 35.6% of children in middle school or lower, 34.9% of high school graduates, 32.8% of people who had some college, and 22.3% of college graduates are obese. Maryland is ranked 24 out of 50 states for having the highest percentage obesity and overweight population. Imagine what other states may be experiencing.

Read More
542 Words | 3 Pages

Ryan 1 Robert W. Ryan Dr. Anne Kennedy ENGL111-86N-N1-201730-l 11 April 2018 Working Title: Diet & Exercise: We Have a Lot to Learn Thesis Statement: Obesity is an epidemic that we must get under control, our future generations depend on it for a healthy life with less risk of high healthcare expenses. Introductory Rationale: Obesity has become an ever-growing problem in the U.S. and worldwide and we must do something about it before it gets worse. We must start teaching our youth of the importance in healthy diet and exercise. In the book “Cardiovascular Risk Management” Arroll and Hobbs state, “Of particular concern are the recent rapid rises in obesity in children and adolescents, largely the result of increased caloric intake coupled with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle”

Read More
647 Words | 3 Pages

Obesity in the American schooling system has became a part of the "norm" in teen lives. Healthy options are voted on in school and PTO board meeting, but sadly, those healthy options die at the meeting. With cheaper, fattier options getting easier to access, and the healthy options getting harder to reach, it is not a wonder why there is a large percentage of teenagers on the verge of obesity. America is known for the number of fat people in the population. With a McDonald's on every block, who would even try and fight against this fact?

Read More
340 Words | 2 Pages

Topic: Childhood Obesity General Purpose: To inform the audience about childhood obesity Specific Purpose: To shed light on the increasing rates and effects of childhood obesity. Introduction I. Attention-Getter A. 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds are obese (USA Today). B. About 34% of children 10-17 in the state South Carolina are obese making it the 13th most obese state in the nation (The State) II. In the future most us sitting in this room will probably have children and I don’t think you are going to want them have to struggle with the obesity problem. III.

Read More

More about Obesity In American Elementary Schools Essay

Related Topics

Open Document