What school can do to reduce obesity in elementary school?

Question

please give me answer instead of provide healthy food in cafeteria. Thanks

Answer 1

Well, yeah. Ideas? Salad bars, with only healthy items (no mayo covered crap), roasted turkeys, chickens, lean beef, steamed brown rice, hot vegetables---not cooked in butter and fruit. No pizza, no fries, no fried foods, no ice cream--none of that crap they sell now. When I was in school (yeah, a few years ago..lol) the ladies actually cooked our food from scratch every day. It was GOOD. And this was in the 3rd biggest county in the USA---Fairfax, Va.

Answer 2

Create a class schedule that isn't just sitting all day. Something maybe like one hour lesson, then 15 minute nature walk, then next lesson, then 30 minute gymn session. Something of the like, we keep preaching against sedidentary lifestyles, then they go to school and sit.

Take out the sugar vending machines period. Offer fruit and veggie snacks, say for late lunchers in mid am and for early lunchers in mid pm. Push water to drink, keeping hydrated even while sitting helps. And what is in those lunches anyways, my daughter has lunch one day: cheese stix and pizza sauce. Umm, where are the real veggies here, and lets get away from the grease. And melon and fruit make a fine treat instead of ice cream, sell like sliced apples with cinnamon or something.

Then of course educate them about the consequences of unhealthy lifestyle and what little things they can do to stay active and eat right, or just plain eat less, jeeze who needs a super size anyways. Any adult in the US almost needs a class in how to afford to eat healthy and how to shop for produce smart and how to prep in different ways. It is like an underground knowledge train, if you don't know how do you find out!

I don't really know about the whole food pyramid, I say just go back to basics, the more processed the food the worse for you, and teach gardening!!!

Teach gardening, and a basic lesson in farming, and then what processes are used to process food. Don't just tell them it is bad for you, educate them why and how etc. At the same time take the advantage to teach them what world resources we have, and there is a consumer calculator I think on its a wonderful world, or earth day or a related website. The average American consumes so much land resources per person, and umm we only have so much land available in the whole world. This stuf is all related, make it a required curriculum.

I say a mock farming and gardening class will also help instill a little working class. Not optional, but just as important, if not more, than like algebra. So hard to find good workers anymore. Plus hands on works better in making a lasting impression, and they will feel proud for a job well done and with hard work.


PS While at it make a mandatory accounting curriculum that goes over basic household budgeting and how to become self sufficient and retire and all that jaz, even how to balance a check book. Teach the teens how money really works! And the credit problem.


The whole school system should really rethink their required vs optional courses anyways. Get kids more educated on real world and how it works, basic math and english of course, and what they want to do for a living to contribute, then formulate optional course maps for specific fields, then they must choose a field, and the courses are set. But a lot of waste goes to our current required curiculum. I hated high school, no classes really for me, stop wasting time and money and revamp the whole thing ahhh.

Answer 3

They should have more P.E., and quit serving all the nasty junk food. An example of what you can buy at a school lunch line includes french fries, a slice of pizza, and a gatorade. Plus, the kids can go to the snack line and buy a couple of cookies, or ice cream. I think it is ridiculous. Anyway, schools can also have health classes where they learn about nutrition.

Answer 4

change school menus and remove all vending machines
more health & nutrition education
more stress on physical activity

* however with out help from the parents none of the above will have much of an impact. if the home is filled with processed foods and snacks and the parents are overweight and sedentary the child is more likely to follow that lifestyle

Answer 5

Get rid of gym as we know it now, and replace it with physical activity that kids enjoy.

The kids that need exercise the most are the ones made to feel inadequate in gym class. They are picked last for teams, and no one will throw them the ball. They learn to hate physical activity, and grow fatter.

Instead of the hell that PE is, replace it with DAILY walking, aerobics, DDR (dance dance revolution) or other fun activities that get kids moving in a non-competetive environment.

Add that to healthy choices in the cafeteria, NO SODA, and nutrition education from kindergarten on, and we might get somewhere.

Answer 6

Increase the amount of days each student takes gym. Replace the vending machine snacks with healthier foods. Make the weight room more available to students (if the school has one), by allowing students to go there during study hall; not just after school.

Answer 7

MAKE GYM MANDATORY, maybe every day.

then change the menus, but make it good. my school has the option of premade sandwhich, hamburger/hotdog/cheesburger/chickenburger, pizza, meal of the day, nachos, salad, and bagels

now most of those options are unhealthy, and hamburgers are cheaper than the meal of the day.

if they could make healthy foods, and also make them worth eating, it would be a phenominal start

but considering that cloric intake hasnt changed in the past 20 years, but the amount of physical activity, gym would do even more.

Answer 8

Make the parents attend a seminar on healthy eating and diet control along with educating the children .

Answer 9

by having a one hour p.e. period and taking out all the soda and snackes machines.

Answer 10

they can start teaching the kids the cons of being fat and how it shortens their life span