Fight Childhood Obesity By Supporting Public School Nutrition Reform

In case you haven't noticed, kids have gotten bigger recently. In fact, according to the CDC, obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years with nearly 20 percent of children aged 6-11 and 18 percent for those aged 12-19. This adds up to 12.5 million children that are obese in the U.S.

Washington is noticing, too.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama acknowledged his wife's new focus on addressing childhood obesity in the US. Michelle Obama's commitment will help to give this issue the priority that it deserves in Washington and in communities nationwide. The Obamas took it even further, with the President recommending $1 billion increase in spending for childhood nutrition initiatives in his 2009 budget.

This is serious and it's a major health issue facing our nation. While Michelle Obama's new initiative will help to raise the profile of this national problem and hopefully bring additional resources and energy to combating it, there are options now that will make a big difference.

Congress should be reauthorizing the Childhood Nutrition Act this year. It's a bill that is reauthorized every five years and provides funding for all federal nutrition programs, including school lunches. There's a proposal to ban all soda and junk food from these programs. This won't end the obesity epidemic but it will make a big dent and will help to further galvanize this issue. Millions of school children are gulping sugary drinks and consuming high-sugar, high-fat foods with no nutritional value. It's dangerous to their hearts and their heads. It impedes them from learning in classes and is significant factor in the obesity epidemic.

A California study found that 41 percent of children aged two to 11 and a whopping 62 percent of those aged 12-19 are having at least one soda a day (the largest soda consumers in the US). And, with our economy still in a recession, school meals are often the primary source of food for many children. According to Feeding America, in 2008, nearly 17 million children lived in households that were food-insecure, meaning they didn't have regular access to food.

Despite the message from the White House that this issue is a priority, the reauthorization of the bill hasn't happened yet. While you might roll your eyes and just assume that this is business as usual in the government, millions of kids' health is at stake.

It is urgent that our government reauthorize the act and provide healthy foods, not junk foods. It's commonsense. California already did it and the rest of the nation should follow suit. You can make a difference today with these simple actions.

1. Sign this petition asking Congress for better school foods.

2. Call the US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and urge him to make the Child Nutrition Reauthorization a priority. His office is at 202-720-3631.

3. Call the White House to thank President Obama for his commitment to childhood nutrition and urge him to make the bill a priority. The White House telephone number is 202-456-1111.

Sarah's Social Action Snapshot originally appeared on Takepart.com

 

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Comments

[kbrower]

02:03 AM on 02/18/2010

I totally agree. Health Education needs to be a more integral part of the education system. Programs like Healthy-Start.com are needed. This has been needed for several generations. It is a shame it taking til now to reach a tipping point.

[Melinda Ehrlich]

12:22 PM on 02/09/2010

I wholeheartedly agree that obesity in young people will invariably lead to soaring health care costs when thiscould all be prevented. Just as smoking has been banned in public places, our childrens' health should be given that same respect. Naysayers will shout that Big Brother (aka big government) is infiltrating the school cafeterias of our nation if junk food and other unhealthy choices are banned. Fruit juices, high in fructose and calories should not even be offered as the "healthier" choice when that too is a fallacy. The ubiquitous bottled water is the only healthy beverage for kids to have at lunch. When I was child growing up in the Fifties, I remember either milk, chocolate milk or a sugar water they called "orange drink" in the school cafeteria. I gravitated towards the orangy beverage, but good nutrition wasn't emphasized in those days. Obesity has always existed but not in epidemic proportions as it does today. We certainly did NOT have salty treats in cellophane bags coming out of the woodwork at home and at school back in the day. I wonder how parents will react if "healthy" was all that was served in school. I know that as a high school teacher in New York City, I would be pleasantly surprised when I discovered the lone health food freak in my classes. Hopefully there will be more health conscious kids as Michelle Obama's message is spread.

[TimStudentNurse]

07:28 PM on 02/05/2010

You can put a lot of nice things in the Child Nutrition Act, but none of it matters unless it has teeth, that is, enforcement provisions, which effectively means reclaiming the subsidies provided to a "school food authority" for providing free and reduced price meals if it won't try to adapt to the improved guidelines. If anyone in Congress proposes enforcement measures, the majority in Congress will see that those teeth are pulled, in order to protect their campaign accounts, just like they did to the revision of the National School Lunch Program proposed in 1994 and enacted in 1995.

Look Ma, no teeth!

[hulagirrrl]

03:49 AM on 02/05/2010

This is all fine and dandy. Have you also looked at the lifestyle of many of these children? I will maintain that stress is the biggest fattening agent in their life. Stress is fattening, computer games are stressful, very very stressful, TV is very stressful, no play, no climbing, no balancing, no ball playing and sharing a ball with kids, no sidewalks to ride the bike or scooter in the neighborhoods, no afternoon play because parents are afraid (stress again) to leave their kids outside, oh, and yes, then there are those kids who have parents who have to work three jobs to make what is called a living wage, these kids must have stress equaling a battle field, taking care of siblings, living maybe in less desirable circumstances, yes, and that all with low grade cheap food........ all your little campaigns will not combat that. Go and fight for playgrounds, restructure school hours to allow children time to run, play hide and seek, skip a rope and so on. Running, balancing, climbing trees, hide and seek are all games important for development, remember mother nature did not get the memo that we are no longer hunters and gatherers, our instincts are still the same... maybe that is why we hunt and gather all that garbage in supermarkets, because more and more our instincts are being depressed by the way we live.