(photo via www.bloomberg.com)
If you haven’t heard already, on Friday, February 1st, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed new rules for the standards of food sold in schools. Basically, these new rules would ban candy, high-calorie sports drinks, and greasy foods in elementary, middle, and high schools in an effort to combat childhood obesity. Instead, school vending machines would sell water, low-calorie sports drinks, diet soda, and baked chips. Schools that currently sell fatty a la carte options in their cafeterias would be forced to replace those foods with “healthier pizzas, low-fat hamburgers, fruit cups and yogurt,” according to the Huffington Post.
Is this a great proposal? In my opinion, yes…but I don’t think it’s enough. I believe that in order to truly live a healthy lifestyle, you have to want to be healthy. Yes, I understand that most kids love junk food—they want cookies and candy and French fries and chocolate and soda. I know I did. And I also understand that the capacity for a child to understand how the human body works is also limited. BUT… I think that in order for this proposal to have any lasting impact, we need to change the way that we educate children about food.
I never knew. My parents ate healthy and made me eat healthy. I never was allowed to buy lunch at school, but I would trade my sliced apple or baby carrots to anyone who would give me something sugary. And for the most part, that’s how it’s always going to be. Kids want what they can’t have.
So what would I propose? Let’s be real here, healthy living is probably one of the most important things a kid (or anyone for that matter) could learn about. That’s why I think that all schools should be required to teach a healthy living class, educating kids in a way that makes sense about the importance of eating healthy, exercising, and taking care of your body. Kids need to understand that their bodies “work better” when they fuel them with healthy foods. And they need to appreciate those foods. How do you get the kids excited about health? Make it a competition. Kids love competitions and prizes. For example, if you do 30 minutes of exercise, you get a point. If you replace your cookies with veggies at lunch you get a point. Etc. Etc. I’m no expert on government affairs, but it seems to me that though this proposal is a step in the right direction, it is not enough. You can force kids to eat healthy for some degree, but in order to really promote healthy routines and lifestyles, you have to make them want to eat healthy.
