More than 1/3 of American children are obese or overweight,
and that number continues to rise each year. Parents could model better
eating habits and stock their fridges with fresh fruit and vegetables, but the
best starter solution might begin at lunchtime. Sweetgreen, a healthy
quick-serve restaurant that values local and organic ingredients, clarified
disparity between American student lunches and those of other countries by
photographing typical school lunches from around the world. The visuals are astounding.
More than 32 million students daily are served a meal regulated by the National
School Lunch Program (NSLP), as pictured below. The quality of these
lunches must somehow correlate to the health of America's youth.
*Note: ketchup is considered a vegetable serving according to
the NSLP, be aware that one quarter of a serving of regular
Heinz ketchup is plain sugar. In no way shape of form should ketchup
be allowed to pass as a vegetable to an already overweight nation.
Now lets do some comparing, shown below are a wide
variety of the typical school lunches served in various countries.
These countries around the globe seem to be nourishing their students with fresher,
greener and more nutrient-rich foods that are very much brain foods.
American politics acknowledge that our nation's children
should not go hungry, but there's less of an emphasis on what exactly our
children are being fed. With the great risks associated with being
overweight and news that diet may be just as important to mental health as it
is to physical health, the state of students' nutrition should be all it
takes to improve the quality of the lunch tray--more fresh, less fried. Even
though measures have been taken, such as the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids
Act, America still has some work to do.
Absolutely loved reading the article from Sweetgreen! It's a restaurant that I can't wait to eat at! I totally agree that for the health of children, it is so necessary to model healthy eating in schools and homes. One of the things that stands out about the other plates is the low amount of processing done to the food. The U.S. plate has a container of cut fruit and instant mashed potatoes whereas other plates have full fruits and vegetables. I hope this is the direction our school cafeterias will shift to!
ReplyDeleteWow, what a great article! I think that it is insane that ketchup is considered a vegetable and is still being treated as one in school lunches. I think that the nutritional value of school lunches is something that is often discussed but has unfortunately not been significantly changed. I would love to see U.S. school lunches transition toward any of those shown of the other countries. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is actually one of my favorite things to look at whenever I see a new article about it. It's truly amazing to see the disparity between the way children eat here in the U.S and how they eat in other countries. I can't tell you them number of times I've taking to Netflix to watch documentaries on this and I've even done a social campaign and project on it to see how advertisements adversely affect this study as well. There are so many things that are wrong about the school system but I honestly believe the food that is served daily is probably their biggest issue here in the U.S. Great article!
ReplyDeleteGreat article! It blows my mind how we are feeding America's youth, especially with all the ongoing talks about how we are an obese nation. Yes, it takes a lot of effort to change our eating habits, increasing exercise, and overall improving the quality of life here. However, we are doing a complete disservice to the future of our country by providing our youth with meals as horrid as we serve today. We are actually encouraging bad eating behaviors today by showing kids that if the schools feed them this kind of food it must be ok. Yes, parents have a lot of influence about influencing what their children eat, but our school systems and the NSLP need to take more of a responsibility to encourage good, healthy eating habits at the young age of growing kids.
ReplyDelete