Child Obesity: Government Wants to Save the Children

In hopes of reducing the number of children who get fat during their school years, a federal effort has been made to push junk foods out of schools. Foods like Pepsi, french fries and Snickers bars will be expelled from the nation’s schools.

The first lady, Michelle Obama said that she would lead an initiative to reduce childhood obesity in the country. Obama says she will use all the power of her White House pulpit to promote a multifaceted campaign that will include more healthful food in schools, more accurate food labeling, better grocery stores in communities that don’t have them, public service announcements and efforts to get children to be more active. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 32 percent of children and adolescents today – 25 million kids – are obese or overweight.

“The first lady having a huge microphone and a spotlight is really helpful,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says. “It’s a big health crisis. We need to involve not only the kids but the families.”

The goal is to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation.The Obama administration will ban candy and sugary beverages to offer far more nutritious choices for students all over the country.

The legislation would require that all school offerings to agree with strict new nutritional guidelines. The legislation would allow the reauthorization of the U.S. government’s school breakfast and lunch programs, which is designed to lead to healthy eating habits of children and teenagers across the nation. But some schools offer fatty foods and sweets outside of these programs or have vending machines with sodas and candy, with the money often used to finance sports or other extracurricular programs. Many schools have changed their offerings.

However, the bill would exempt bake sales, parties and other occasional offerings of sweets.

Five years ago, fewer than a third of the nation’s school districts put limits on students’ access to candy and sugary drinks. But that share jumped to two-thirds in 2008.

There has been two sides of this conflict. The other one would be that selling candy and other junk food is not a good examples for kids, and the other one is that kids should have their own choices when it comes to food in school grounds.

Source(s): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/23/AR2008122302423.html

http://rebeccascritchfield.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/obama-on-obesity/

http://www.justicenewsflash.com/2010/02/12/obama-administration-pushes-junk-food-schools_201002123325.html