“Proposal to solve bad diets among children”

The numbers of obese children have increased over the past ten years. In fact, the numbers have redoubled over the past ten years. Today obesity is a social problem, far more children than earlier suffer from diseases related to obesity. Approximately 30000-50000 are in great danger of contracting illnesses such as diabetes and cancer that are related to obesity. These children are eating themselves to a premature death. Many reports indicate the same thing, children and teenager’s diets are becoming worse.

One might wonder what has lead to this explosive development of bad diet among teenagers. One example is that sedentary activities are more common. Activities such as watching television and playing computer games incite excessive eating and drinking and are not physically demanding. In our stressful society are there is no time for cooking. In fact, researches show that cooking is what people skip in order to save time. This results in children being provided bad food by their parents. Furthermore, children imitate their parent’s behaviour. If their parents don’t cook for them there is a big possibility that later in life they will no cook for themselves or their children. Additionally, the food that is served at the school’s dining halls is not always of a high standard. This leads to children omitting the school lunch in addition to snacks and soft drinks.

In order to improve children’s and teenager’s diets there must be cooperation between parents and schools with support from the government.

Firstly, parents need to take responsibility for their children’s eating habits. To sit down and have dinner together with their children every day is something all parents should strive for. To provide them with homemade food should be a matter of course. Fast food and snacks should be a treat, not a quick solution to dinner. It is at home children should establish a healthy relationship to food.

Secondly, schools need to take a bigger responsibility. In the same way as schools educate children how to read and write they should also teach them what type of food is good for them and what is not. Lectures about nutrition should be a part of the curriculum. If parents fail to give their children a good knowledge of food, then schools should be the institution that does. The same applies to the food at school. It should be healthy and tasteful, which is unfortunately not always the case in today’s schools. In addition to this, children shouldn’t be exposed to temptations when they are at school. Many schools have set a good example of not offering sweets and soft drinks in the cafeterias. Results have been astounding, teacher have reported how they have noticed a remarkable positive difference on children’s temper and level of concentration since the sweets have been removed from the cafeterias.

Parents might argue that they do not have time to cook healthy food or that the government does not have means to change the food that is served in schools. The bottom line is that no parents want to see their children suffering from illnesses connected to bad diets. The cost to cover notifications of illness and treatments will be much higher for the government than if they would offer healthy food at school.

Together parents and schools can cooperate to give children a good education and a healthy relationship to food. It does not have to be hard and the positive effects will be immense.