8/29/05
Wellness policy needs to be developed for our kids
The number of obese children in elementary and secondary schools is reaching epidemic numbers.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 31 percent of children ages 6-19 are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. In Minnesota, the percentage of overweight kids has doubled from 10.6 to 22.4 percent. Of that percentage, 15.3 percent are ages six to 11 years. Kids who are obese face earlier and long-lasting health problems, including earlier diabetes.
The experts are saying more kids are eating junk food and drinking soda pop at home, particularly after school, and they are exercising less.
Some will point to the lunches children eat at school as one piece of the puzzle. School lunch directors, however, have made many changes in their menus, offering choices to kids, including more fruits and vegetables. One school lunch director invites the skeptics to have a lunch at the school.
The research, however, is showing that kids take in the calories from 3 to 6 p.m. when they eat the snacks, drink the soda pop and plop down in front of the TV set or do games on the computer.
Meanwhile, there are fewer physical education requirements in the schools, even though new gyms are huge. In grades 9 through 12, only one year of physical education is required by the state, while physical education is required every year in grades one through eight.
In some high schools, there are pop and snack vending machines that dispense products loaded with fat calories. More middle schools and high schools are turning off vending machines during school hours, but some principals are reluctant to get rid of them because they make money.
Some communities offer after-school programs where they can get exercise, but getting them from school to a YMCA, Boys and Girls Club or a recreation program is a challenge for the working family. The abundant trail systems in developing suburbs could be used more by youngsters.
As usual this is not just a school problem; itís a community problem, which is part of the overall challenge of having productive choices for kids after school, including exercise.
There is one way this problem can be addressed at the school level. A government mandated wellness policy must be in place by the 2006 school year. Itís an opportunity to see what food kids are served in school lunch, what vending machines offer and when and how much physical education and exercise kids take during and after school. It also is a chance to see whatís taught about nutrition in the school
Now that the problem of overweight children is becoming more known, parents, staff and students need to act and develop a wellness policy that makes sense, even if it means changing whatís in the vending machines and increasing the number of physical education classes.
The future health of children is at stake in this time when too many kids are eating the wrong foods and exercising less.
Developing a wellness policy aimed at preventing overweight kids should have a high priority. -- Don Heinzman
HometownSource.com
ECM Publishers, Inc.
4095 Coon Rapids Blvd.
Coon Rapids, MN 55433
