Students all over the world need best possible nutrition

 

11:52 p.m. CDT September 28, 2014

A student takes a free sample of a new sloppy joe recipe being tested at Riverdale High School. (Photo: John A. Gillis/DNJ )

Although the details often are a matter of debate, the general consensus is that good health requires at least two things— good nutrition and exercise.

What precisely constitutes good nutrition is a matter of ongoing research, but most of developed and developing countries have a problem with effects of poor nutrition including high rates of obesity, particularly among children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this year that while the rate of childhood obesity has declined in most states, it has increased in three states — Colorado, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Tennessee has ranked as high as fourth in the nation in childhood obesity.

Efforts are underway in the state and the nation to reduce rates of childhood obesity.

State government has launched its Eat Well, Play More initiative to try to reduce childhood obesity by a 2015 target date.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is implementing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act through public school systems that participate in the national school lunch program.

Among the provisions of the act are increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, reduced consumption of salt and trans fats and fewer calories in meals.

Implementation of these new requirements has not been easy, but we commend the efforts of the Murfreesboro and Rutherford County school systems to implement these new requirements.

The Murfreesboro system is providing free breakfast and lunches to all students in its schools this year, and that is a major undertaking in itself.

Among the criticisms of the new guidelines is that they waste food because students do not want to eat healthier meals, so we commend efforts of the food-service programs to provide not only healthy but also tasty food.

Unfortunately some criticism of the new nutritional requirements has its basis in ideology rather than concern about the health of children now and in the long term.

Students in public schools still have the option to bring their meals with them, and if parents think they can provide healthier food options for their children, they have every opportunity to do so.

City and county school officials have recognized through participation in the national school lunch program that the systems need to assist many parents in providing nutritional meals for their children.

Such nutritious meals help students to be receptive to instruction throughout the day, and if students also learn about what constitutes good nutrition, then so much the better.