This blog post is based on the article “Child Nutrition” and is written by nea.org and found at http://www.nea.org/home/38649.htm.
This article is about how congress is going to renew child nutrition programs, by reauthorizing the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. I think that it is a great idea for schools to serve a healthy breakfast and school lunch; hungry kids are distracted kids! Updated nutrition guidelines are now making the food in schools much healthier than before. This will result in helping childhood hunger, improving student health and reducing obesity, and will improve training and support the professionalism of food service employees. Being that this Act is intended to help children, this article is speaking to all the parents and teachers of the students in every school. It is also helping support the food service employees, directing it toward anybody in the food service career field. The HHFKA will help childhood hunger by doing the simplest of things, starting with expanding after school meals for at-risk children. All kids must do is stay after school and they get extra help with work, and a healthy nutritious meal. If the students get full meals at school, it can help the family of the student as well. They also plan to expand their universal meal plans though the communities’ support; which should make this act easier if every community chooses to help. This act also plans to help obesity and children’s health; by making local school wellness policies better, and even establishing nutrition standards for cafeteria lunch as well as vending machines. Children can get money from a friend and get any food they want from vending machines, without their parents’ consent. Schools now have ice cream and pizza for sale every day, and some children have allergies to milk and there is nobody there telling them no. The school will then be at fault for the said child’s allergic reaction, and that needs to come to a stop. The HHFKA is also now requiring annual training for all food services; which means you need certification for foods to serve them at schools or have them in vending machines. Having training and certification to serve food in schools should help the nutritional properties of the food being given to the students, and hopefully make their minds sharper in the long run. Children should not be eating things like candy, pizza, and ice cream; especially at the place that is supposed to be teaching them how to live life. Helping childhood hunger, improving student health, reducing obesity, and improving training and adding certification, are going to be the main objectives of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. “Child Nutrition” has certainly been quite the article to read, and having the knowledge I know now, I myself will be personally finding out how to get more involved in helping with child nutrition. Not just in school settings, but in day care settings, and home settings as well. Putting standards on food, and making sure that it is healthy for all students, is a big step in the right direction for child nutrition. |