Posts Tagged ‘Junk Food’
Healthy Food In Schools Gaining Momentum
Rick Hendershot asked:
School boards across North America have been challenged in recent years to get rid of the junk food in school cafeterias and vending machines and replace it with healthy, nutritious meals and snacks.
And while it may seem obvious that this is the right thing to do, it is not always that simple.
No serious debate
There is no serious debate that schools should be serving healthy food. Everyone in a position to care about this issue — parents, physicians, teachers and administrators — agrees that children need nutritious, high-fiber, low-fat foods to remain healthy and attentive, and to set them on the right path for their adult years.
Most informed decision-makers have also become aware of the scandalous numbers of children who are now overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has been called an “epidemic” brought on by poor diet and lack of exercise. In some areas of the U.S., as many as 1 in 4 children meet the definition of being overweight or obese.
Causes and consequences of poor diet
Most children become overweight or obese because of two factors: poor diet and lack of activity. If you want a child to get fat, there is a well-known formula to get the job done. Just encourage little Billy to eat lots of calorie-rich foods while sitting around playing video games and watching television. He’ll be overweight in no time.
The North American life style encourages this kind of unhealthy behavior. Like all of us, children are bombarded by advertising encouraging them to eat high-calorie, high-fat, high-sodium foods.
The break down of traditional family meal patterns also encourages the consumption of fast foods. Fast food is prepared by restaurant chains whose primary motivation is mass marketing. Not surprisingly, they have discovered that one of the most effective ways to sell their products is to “spike” them with sugar, salt and cleverly disguised fats.
Kids are easy targets for this kind of manipulation when the same kind of meals and snacks are transplanted into a school environment.
The consequences of childhood overweight are also well known. The Center for Disease Control estimates that as many as 61 percent of overweight children have conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol that make them more at risk for heart disease. They are also much more susceptible to type 2 diabetes, a disease that until a few years ago was associated only with adults.
**Financial obstacles to healthy eating policy
Many school boards have suffered funding cuts over the last twenty years. Vending machines stocked with nonnutritious snacks, and exclusive contracts with soft drink bottlers have been used by many school boards as a source of revenue.
But school administrators across the country are realizing the revenue is relatively small, and the trade-off is irresponsible. Some are restocking vending machines with healthy foods, and in some cases, recouping the initial losses by using more sophisticated marketing strategies.
Other long-standing policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture also tend to discriminate in favor of diets that are heavy in meat and milk. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine notes that meat alternatives are not subsidized by government, but meat and meat products are. The result is that a low-fat, low-cholesterol veggie burger is often twice as expensive as a high-fat hamburger. The same thing happens with milk. Milk production is subsidized, but not the production of low-fat alternatives.
Despite these obstacles, individual schools and district school boards are making progress. School cafeterias are introducing more healthy meal selections, and groups of concerned parents are springing up to support healthy food choices for children in schools.
Regional providers of healthy snack products like http://healthysnackstore.com are also making it easier to replace vending machine junk food with economically priced alternatives that are tasty, low-fat and highly nutritious.
End Anxiety And Panic Attacks
School boards across North America have been challenged in recent years to get rid of the junk food in school cafeterias and vending machines and replace it with healthy, nutritious meals and snacks.
And while it may seem obvious that this is the right thing to do, it is not always that simple.
No serious debate
There is no serious debate that schools should be serving healthy food. Everyone in a position to care about this issue — parents, physicians, teachers and administrators — agrees that children need nutritious, high-fiber, low-fat foods to remain healthy and attentive, and to set them on the right path for their adult years.
Most informed decision-makers have also become aware of the scandalous numbers of children who are now overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has been called an “epidemic” brought on by poor diet and lack of exercise. In some areas of the U.S., as many as 1 in 4 children meet the definition of being overweight or obese.
Causes and consequences of poor diet
Most children become overweight or obese because of two factors: poor diet and lack of activity. If you want a child to get fat, there is a well-known formula to get the job done. Just encourage little Billy to eat lots of calorie-rich foods while sitting around playing video games and watching television. He’ll be overweight in no time.
The North American life style encourages this kind of unhealthy behavior. Like all of us, children are bombarded by advertising encouraging them to eat high-calorie, high-fat, high-sodium foods.
The break down of traditional family meal patterns also encourages the consumption of fast foods. Fast food is prepared by restaurant chains whose primary motivation is mass marketing. Not surprisingly, they have discovered that one of the most effective ways to sell their products is to “spike” them with sugar, salt and cleverly disguised fats.
Kids are easy targets for this kind of manipulation when the same kind of meals and snacks are transplanted into a school environment.
The consequences of childhood overweight are also well known. The Center for Disease Control estimates that as many as 61 percent of overweight children have conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol that make them more at risk for heart disease. They are also much more susceptible to type 2 diabetes, a disease that until a few years ago was associated only with adults.
**Financial obstacles to healthy eating policy
Many school boards have suffered funding cuts over the last twenty years. Vending machines stocked with nonnutritious snacks, and exclusive contracts with soft drink bottlers have been used by many school boards as a source of revenue.
But school administrators across the country are realizing the revenue is relatively small, and the trade-off is irresponsible. Some are restocking vending machines with healthy foods, and in some cases, recouping the initial losses by using more sophisticated marketing strategies.
Other long-standing policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture also tend to discriminate in favor of diets that are heavy in meat and milk. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine notes that meat alternatives are not subsidized by government, but meat and meat products are. The result is that a low-fat, low-cholesterol veggie burger is often twice as expensive as a high-fat hamburger. The same thing happens with milk. Milk production is subsidized, but not the production of low-fat alternatives.
Despite these obstacles, individual schools and district school boards are making progress. School cafeterias are introducing more healthy meal selections, and groups of concerned parents are springing up to support healthy food choices for children in schools.
Regional providers of healthy snack products like http://healthysnackstore.com are also making it easier to replace vending machine junk food with economically priced alternatives that are tasty, low-fat and highly nutritious.
End Anxiety And Panic Attacks
Healthy Food Snacks Can Make A Tremendous Difference
Frank Sinsky asked:
We all know that when we eat right and exercise we feel better – ok, maybe not at first, but once our bodies adjust to the strange new habits, we do tend to have more energy and an overall sense of well being. With donuts, candy and cookies ubiquitous in break areas, making sure to ingest healthy food snacks can be difficult.
When you’re in the habit of diving into easily accessible high sugar, fat and salt snacks, it can be difficult to break the habit. The other problem, of course, is that not only are such foods quick and easy but as with many other unhealthy foods, regardless of a total lack of nutrition, our bodies start to crave them.
We become accustomed to ingesting foods that provide a quick boost of energy – the more sugar the bigger the boost – and then find ourselves needing more to overcome the crash that comes rapidly afterward. Because of this, when we get tired or worn down, we tend to think we “need” more junk food.
Fortunately, it is easier than it seems to get in the habit of eating healthy food snacks. Keeping a store on hand rather than having to hunt them down is the first step. If it’s slightly easier to get to the healthy snack than the unhealthy ones, this will help with changing bad habits to good.
It is also important to make sure the healthy snacks are healthy. Many packaged snack foods, regardless of labeling, are little better than candy bars or potato chips. Such snacks will only help you pack on the pounds because you think you are doing something healthy when you are not.
Finding the right healthy food snacks does not have to involve long hours in specialty stores reading incomprehensible ingredients. High quality, nutritious snacks, made with real ingredients can be found on-line and shipped to your home, saving your health and your time.
For More Details Visit: http://www.getprograde.com/
Fat Loss For Idiots
We all know that when we eat right and exercise we feel better – ok, maybe not at first, but once our bodies adjust to the strange new habits, we do tend to have more energy and an overall sense of well being. With donuts, candy and cookies ubiquitous in break areas, making sure to ingest healthy food snacks can be difficult.
When you’re in the habit of diving into easily accessible high sugar, fat and salt snacks, it can be difficult to break the habit. The other problem, of course, is that not only are such foods quick and easy but as with many other unhealthy foods, regardless of a total lack of nutrition, our bodies start to crave them.
We become accustomed to ingesting foods that provide a quick boost of energy – the more sugar the bigger the boost – and then find ourselves needing more to overcome the crash that comes rapidly afterward. Because of this, when we get tired or worn down, we tend to think we “need” more junk food.
Fortunately, it is easier than it seems to get in the habit of eating healthy food snacks. Keeping a store on hand rather than having to hunt them down is the first step. If it’s slightly easier to get to the healthy snack than the unhealthy ones, this will help with changing bad habits to good.
It is also important to make sure the healthy snacks are healthy. Many packaged snack foods, regardless of labeling, are little better than candy bars or potato chips. Such snacks will only help you pack on the pounds because you think you are doing something healthy when you are not.
Finding the right healthy food snacks does not have to involve long hours in specialty stores reading incomprehensible ingredients. High quality, nutritious snacks, made with real ingredients can be found on-line and shipped to your home, saving your health and your time.
For More Details Visit: http://www.getprograde.com/
Fat Loss For Idiots






