I reviewed Lessons from the Lunchroom: Childhood Obesity, School Lunch, and the Way to a Healthier Future by Lindsey Haynes-Maslow and Jeffrey O’Hara and The $11 Trillion Reward by also Jeffrey O’Hara.
Lessons from the Lunchroom is about how improving the health of food provided in the federal school system would improve the health of school-age children. A key point is that for Children in socioeconomically disadvantaged families, the healthy food options served in a school lunch are often the only chance they get to consume nutritious food.
Another point is that kids ate more fruit and vegetables overall if a wide range of different produce was offered. The last point that stuck out to me was that school lunches may add an additional
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They also recommend that schools exceed the minimum fruit and vegetable requirements in school lunches to increase consumptions as well as be offered as snacks at school. (Haynes-Maslow, O’Hara 2015)
I thought this paper was important because healthy eating habits are formed when young. If school aged children are taught to eat produce with every meal they will be more inclined to practice the same habit when older, therefore ensuring an overall healthier life. It saddens me that children of socioeconomically challenged families often rely on solely school lunch to eat fruits and vegetable. Fortunately, taxpayer actually want their money to go towards improving the federal school lunch program.
The $11 Trillion Reward was about how much America’s economy would save in healthcare and other externality cost to diet related health issues if Americans ate healthier. Three key points were that even small dietary adjustments could save America money, almost 100,000 cardiovascular-related mortalities could have been prevented and that eating more fruits and veggies could save Americans approximately $17 billion dollars in medical bills. (O’Hara