After a year-long closure due to COVID-19, several LAUSD elementary schools began reopening their doors to kindergarteners and first graders for in-person learning this week. As life is returning somewhat back to normal, various education centers across California are incorporating stringent safety procedures to protect the health of teachers and students.
While these public health measures are being rightfully implemented, the district is failing to address another devastating epidemic harming 14.4 million children in America: childhood obesity.
If LAUSD truly cares about the long-term health of their students, the district must promote the healthiest food environment and culture in primary and secondary schools.
We already know that poor nutrition is one of the biggest risk factors for childhood obesity. And schools have an enormous responsibility on the health behaviors of children; elementary students in California spend 181 days and 943 hours in school every single year. So if education centers are already dictating what students are eating throughout the day, why aren’t they making the best decision possible?
The first tangible step LAUSD can take in reducing the rise of childhood obesity is to provide the highest quality and nutrient dense meals in all K-12 schools.
For many students from low-income backgrounds, subsidized meals at school are the only source of breakfast and lunch they’ll receive for the day. 56% of American adolescents are eating a poor diet and fall below the recommended daily servings of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. The health disparities among lower-income background and minority students are only getting worse.
LAUSD can play a critical role in preventing excess weight gain in the most vulnerable children by providing healthy, satisfying, and delicious meals for breakfast, lunch, and snacks throughout the day. By making fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy options the nutritional gold standard, schools can instill healthy eating habits and help reduce the increasing number of obese and overweight children.
In order to combat the current obesogenic environment in schools and promote a healthy food culture, the second step LAUSD must take is eliminating all sweetened beverages and highly processed snacks in school vending machines.
School vending machines have been linked with a greater intake of sugar-sweetened drinks among adolescents and impact more non-White and low-income children who are more vulnerable to childhood obesity. Black children are 16% more likely to buy a sweetened beverage than white children from vending machines in elementary schools and children from lower-income backgrounds are also more likely to drink these sodas.
By simply limiting the number of sugar-sweetened beverages at schools, the overall consumption of soft drinks among children decreased by 4%. Imagine the impact of eliminating all candies, fruit juices, sports drinks, sodas, baked goods, and highly processed foods from every single vending machine in LAUSD.
Instead, schools can replace these unhealthy options with healthy alternatives. A bag of potato chips can be replaced with an unsalted nut mix, candy bars can be replaced with dried fruit with no additional sugars, and sodas can be replaced with coconut or sparkling water.
To complement these two food adjustments, LAUSD should cultivate a positive and fun environment around nutritional education and explain the reasoning behind these drastic changes. The current 8 hours of mandatory nutritional education is not enough; 40-50 hours is needed to drive behavioral change. Studies have shown that food education can help students recognize the importance of nutrition and its impact on their overall health and emotional well-being.
By thoroughly educating students on how healthy eating habits can notably improve their academic performance and psychosocial well-being, schools can guide early eating behaviors and allow students to also make their own proactive changes. By providing nutritious meals and explaining the importance of nutrition on overall health, education centers can develop a positive food environment that significantly curbs childhood obesity.
Just like the safety measures taken to protect children from COVID-19, LAUSD must aggressively combat a preventable epidemic crippling many of their students. The district must take serious, immediate, and tangible action in developing the healthiest food culture for elementary, middle, and high schools.
Unless the childhood obesity epidemic is properly addressed, the quality of life for millions of adolescents will be severely diminished, and a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities and children in lower-income households will be at greater risk of chronic diseases.
LAUSD has the potential to change the lives and long-term health of thousands of children.
The power is in their hands.
It is kinda like a debate between acute and chronic diseases. People sometimes concern more on diseases like COVID, which is outbursting and fatal. In the meantime, children obesity as a core health issue is ignored. This blog touches the great issue that should be paid more attention. Developing a healthier eating habit is as important as giving young students educations.
This is a very important topic to talk about Jisu! I wish I had learned more about nutrition and food management when I was younger. Your idea about replacing junk snacks in the vending machine to healthier alternatives is so smart and it makes me wonder why all the school haven't done that. If it's about money, the schools are acting opposite to what they are expected to do. The poorly designed food system shows how little the education system takes the students' physical and mental health into account. Also, no kids should have to solely depend on school's food to feed themselves, especially considering it is their growing period. Poor lifestyle including diet formed at a young age can…
I think this also speaks to how little the federal government is doing to increase access to food and basic necessities in lower income neighborhoods. No child should have to rely on their school as the sole source of 2/3 of their meals throughout the week. Coming from a private school, there was definitely more done to address this issue, talking to students about nutrition and balanced meals, prohibiting soda, etc. However there were still vending machines that sold very unhealthy snacks and sugary beverages (including soda). Kids would just wait for the bell to ring at 3 and get their fill then. There can absolutely be more done by educators and public officials to further address this topic.
I was an LAUSD student for 10 years, and I can’t recall a single time I was educated on nutrition inside the classroom. In fact, I’m pretty sure most of my nutritional knowledge comes from my parents and the internet. Nutrition is something that should be taught and reinforced year after year, and I don’t believe it even has to be its own class. LAUSD is notorious for uninspiring physical education, but I believe my old middle school, Emerson Community Charter, takes this matter seriously and emphasizes health through their “Sports Academy'' program. Furthermore, I remember school lunches being pretty disgusting, even though they were technically healthy. Students deserve to be satisfied by their meals, and this will require LAUSD…
This post discusses a problem that has been plaguing American society since the 90s, but has fallen out of the public perception in the past few years. The lack of quality nutrition in schools needs to be something that we as a society strive to fix and I think you're right, the power rests in our education system. What caused this issue to stop being discussed, was it just COVID? One pressing issue is: with many healthy foods such as fruits and whole grains being more expensive, where should public schools garner the funds from in order to meet nutritional standards? It would be great to see LAUSD schools lead the way.