In an article written by child health care services, Michelle Obama is making an effort to cut down on childhood obesity in the schools of the United States of America. I personally believe that this is good in theory, but how Michelle says she "plans" to approach it and how she actually approaches it are two totally different things.
Michelle has changed all regulations for foods in the American schools. Schools have made little progress. Since these changes, "statistics show that more and more kids are bringing their lunch", could this be because the food is not as good as before?
Michelle is trying to get this started and in a hurry. According to this article, she plans,
"to reverse these trends, the White House plan seeks to cut child obesity and overweight rates by 2.5% by 2015 and by 5% by 2020. It's not a vague goal. Scorekeeping will be up to the CDC, which reports child obesity rates every two years."
Michelle plans on taking 12 steps to cut down childhood obesity and in putting these steps in place she is making sure that schools measure "the amount of sugar in children's diets", taking away full cookies and providing 100 calorie snack packs. Also, the schools have to serve "fruits and vegetables" as a requirement now and not just a suggestion as it was before the changes.
From my personal experiences, these changes are not very appreciated at all. Before the change, meals were severed with white bread, real meat, and they did not have such strict standards. Now, after the change, no one wants to eat. More people are having their parents or older friends bring them lunch, and the food seems more rubbery and less desirable.
I am a little worried that making these changes could effect the confidence in kids that are on the obese scale. I think that if the more obese kids feel they need to lose weight, that it should be their choice. If they do not want to lose weight, they should still be able to enjoy the lunch provided by their school. Both options should be made available.
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