Editorial

Editorial: Child Obesity

=Step By Step=

Everywhere I go, I seem to notice more and more obese people around, especially children. Did you know that nearly 20% of children in the United States are obese? This number is increasing every year when it should be getting smaller. People need to take action and decrease this percentage by doing different things. For instance, public schools should have recess and require physical activity. Also, schools should only serve healthy options for lunch and cut out the greasy mess. Lastly, schools should be required to grow and serve their own grown vegetables.

Obesity rates have tripled in the past thirty years. One way to make this number smaller is physical activity. By having recess at schools, kids get at least ten minutes of activity each day. Public middle schools and all high schools need to be required to have recess or P.E class for each and every student. This would decrease the amount of obesity greatly. There are many ways to burn calories, and all are easy to do. They just require some time out of the day. You can jump rope, run, play any sport, or even just walk, whatever it takes to get your body moving at school and everyday.

Another way schools can help control obesity is having healthy options for lunch. For example, instead of fires maybe schools could serve sweet potato fries. Or, instead of hamburgers and hot dogs maybe healthy turkey or ham sandwiches would be a better option. Changing eating habits will decrease child obesity rates one step at a time. Statistics show that children who are obese have a greater chance of being obese as an adult. 300,000 deaths are caused by childhood obesity, and people can die at a very early age. If we start taking action now and have healthy eating habits maybe we can stop obesity.

Yet another way to make child obesity numbers go down is by requiring ALL schools to have their own home grown vegetables that they serve for lunch. Instead of frozen, greasy vegetables, homegrown produce is a much better option. The students can run these gardens, which will also give them a chance for physical activity.

Maybe after we make these strides, the nearly 20 percent can decrease to a 0 percent. Schools are the first steps toward the marathon of overcoming the struggle of child obesity. We need to take a running start in our struggle. By requiring physical activity and having healthy food options that are homegrown we are taking our first steps. Step by step we will make it there.