too cool for school

    As I have learned in my education classes, sometimes you need to educate or reach a parent before you can get to the child. The first and strongest influence a child will ever have is it’s parents (or guardians) so, from a young age that child is like a sponge, lapping up everything from what their parent says, what they do, and what they eat.

The Redding Pilot featured an article about the “Two Angry Moms” and how these women are trying to change school lunch. Basically they want EVERYONE in the community to heighten their awareness of what they consume. Some of the frightening facts they introduce are

“ 35% of American children are overweight or at risk; one in three children born in the year 2000 will become diabetic; one in four American children take prescription medication daily for chronic illness. There are soaring rates of asthma, ADHD, anxiety, autism, learning disabilities and depression among children.“

But are we taking the easy way out by blaming these facts purely on food? BBC news recently did an article that looked at if by chance childhood obesity was genetic. When doing a study with non-identical twins (because they’re genetically different but will have the same upbringing) they found that a bad food environment was less influential then the children’s genes.

Jane Wardle, the professor that lead the study said, “These results do not mean that a child with a high complement of susceptibility genes will inevitably become overweight, but that their genetic endowment gives them a stronger predisposition.”

If genes do have a small role in our weight, then it is even more important to watch what school kids eat.”Two Angry Mom’s” suggests we find new alternatives to the way that we view and use food now. For instance, food is used as a reward in many situations, like getting an answer right in class, but instead maybe a bonus point on the next test would be a better way to go. Also, in many schools there isn’t much time allotted for kids to eat lunch and return to class, causing them to stuff food in their mouth while still being able to get in dire social time.

“Look at the contract for food service providers. Schools do a RFP — request for proposals — every five years. Use the Freedom of Information Act to see what the proposal is asking of vendors. Many efforts to improve the foods served in school is being undermined by provisions of the contracts,” points out Amy Kalafa, who created the documentary. 

Kalafa makes a great point, because she is telling the community that they all need to step up if they want to see change. Busy parents may not have the time to see who supplies the food at their kids school, let alone make them a well balanced meal to bring for lunch- but if they spend the extra time now trying to change things they won’t have to watch their child go through the suffering of teasing, obesity, and perhaps diabetes. I think that many parents think of schools like they do of Disney World, that every thing is safe and going to get taken care of. We need to change this frame of mind and begin taking an active role in all parts of schools.

The BBC article points out that it’s not just the fact that kids are fatter now then they ever have been. Obesity at a young age could carry through to adulthood, and with that comes many frightening conditions like diabetes, risk factors for cancer, and other things like depression.

Tam Fry from the Child Growth Foundation says, “Even if someone has a gene which predisposes them to obesity, it doesn’t mean they will become obese if they work hard to eat healthily, and take more exercise to burn off those calories.”

If schools start changing what they offer for meals now, it will be taking a giant step in the right direction. A change needs to be made, otherwise there’s a good chance that our children will start having shorter life expectancies than we will.

The Redding Pilot

‘Two Angry Moms’ deals with school lunch food issues 

By Janis Gibson

Feb 11, 2008

http://www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/redding/28786.shtml

BBC News

Obesity ‘may be largely genetic

Feb 7, 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7230065.stm

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