Friday, March 30, 2012

Malnutrition


In today's world it is estimated that every one out of three kids are overweight. Overweight kids are obviously malnourished, however; in America kids who are extremely underweight are considered malnourished as well. Kids are lacking the proper food intake that they are supposed to be consuming. Malnutrition and malnourishment does not imply that there kids are lacking food, instead malnutrition is a representation of a lack of nutrients and healthy choice foods. 

Majority of children in America consume an enormous amount of calories, however; they are lacking the essential vitamins, nutrients, and minerals that are necessary for the body. Vitamins are a tremendous part of nutrition because they maintain body regulation and a lack of vitamins can lead to significant side-effects, according to Mary Gavin, and expert from the Nemours Foundation. It is known that children who maintain insufficient diets are more susceptible to healthy problems, academic learning, and psychosocial behavior. Knowing these tremendous effects it is still hard to believe that there are so many malnourished children in our country and that we are doing little to prevent this. I have been observing several physical education classes over my years of experience as a teacher candidate and I have noticed a large number of obese and over weight students all over New York State. Lacking vitamins and nutrition is detrimental to healthy clearly, therefore we should be doing more to create awareness and to promote proper healthy more throughout the education system. 
Not only is malnutrition detrimental towards a child's health problems, academic learning, and psychosocial behavior, it  can also result in long-term neural issues occurring in the brain. These issues can have a huge impact on children's emotional responses, reaction to stress, learning disabilities, and various other medical issues. "In one study, researchers Margaret Lahey and Shari Rosen discovered that,  'Malnourished children […] were found to have delays in vision, fine motors skills, language skills and personal-social skills.' " Researchers have also determined that 1/3 of surveyed children reported to be effected by poor food habits, chronic illnesses, and lower school achievements. These results clearly indicate that there is a direct result between nutrition and how it is effecting students daily lives and academic performances. Food is easily available for students whether it is in the cafeteria, the vending machines, or fast food. These food resources are detrimental to our students and they are impacting them in the most negative ways. Regarding cafeteria food, I do not understand how schools who claim to promote the values of education and the importance of the students are still feeding the students grease and fatty fried foods. School districts need to step up in their meal plans and parents needs to stop feeding their children fast food because it is fast and easy.

Resource: http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/28


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