School Nutrition And Physical Activity Policy Essay Example

school environment a very promising avenue as attempts to end obesity among adults have ineffective. This is because 95% of the American youths who are aged between 5 to 17 are at the moment in school. The schools have an intensive and continuous contact with children. Nearly half of the working hours are spent at school. This translates to about a one-third of each weekday. At school, children consume about two meals in addition to snacks on a daily basis. They are also provided with a number of opportunities for the physical activities. Therefore, the school policies that target the nutrition, as well as the physical activity, are major meaningful obesity mitigating factor.

Secondary schools, in particular, are very promising for fighting obesity. This is because secondary schools have unhealthy food environments, have less physical education, and students make more personal choices than those in the elementary schools. There have been several local, state, and national recommendations on the kind of food and physical education to be offered to schools. Some of the recommendations included in the school nutrition and physical health policies include the provision of food rich in nutrients to students and parents, restricting the promotion and marketing and less nutritious foods within the school environment.

In 2004, the congress passed a legislation, the Child Nutrition and Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) Reauthorization Act of 2004, that required schools districts to establish a wellness policy starting the year 2006 to 2007. The wellness to be established by the school districts are to contain assurances that the meals provided by the schools met the minimum federal school meals standards and include nutrition guidelines for all the

available food. It should also include the assurance that its guidelines for the reimbursable meals would not be less than the federal requirements. Finally, the schools are supposed to develop a plan for measuring the effectiveness of the wellness policy. This strategy is expected to be successful since students spend a lot of time at school and take about two meals there. As a result, the kind of strategy is proving to be effective in the fighting obesity in the United States.

Another recommendation of the policy is to increase physical activity for students. In 2007, on 3% of the United States high schools provided PE for at least 3 days every week. Many schools don’t put come up well-developed physical activity programs due to the fact that they are constantly faced with pressures to improve the academic performance of the students and budget constraints. The school administrators are under constant pressure to make sure that their students pass the national standardized tests. There has been no way of measuring the schools’ performance in offering students physical education.

The policies on increasing physical activities in schools require that all students should participate in physical education. Exemptions have been limited so that many students take part in the physical activities. In addition, schools are required to provide the students with more opportunities that will enable them to participate in physical activities. Schools are expected to add more programs in their lists of physical activities such as sports offered so as to include more students in the physical activity bracket. The schools are also expected to employ highly qualified physical education teachers. Teachers with high physical education credential have

the ability to better support students in physical activities. Finally, the schools are required to equip themselves with enough physical education facilities to make sure that the physical activities are efficient among students.

The school nutrition and physical activity policy main purpose was to reduce the rate of obesity among children making them have a healthy future. However, statistics indicate that these policies have been less effective. Obesity among children is still high. The obesity prevalence has remained fairly stable at 17%. The policies have had an impact of leveling stabilizing the rate of obesity among children rather than decreasing it. Some of the factors that affect the effectiveness of the school nutrition and physical activity policy include the parents and the budget constraints. The parents have a very large influence on their children. Parents have the ability to shape their children’s eating habits and physical activity which ultimately determine the overall weight of the child. There is evidence that parental involvement in the school health initiatives is of a lot of importance. The success of the school nutrition and physical activity policy largely depends on the parents. The policies have been less effective in schools with less parent support. There have also been budget constraints on the part of the schools in implementing the policy. Food rich in nutrients are expensive and implementation of the physical education requirements is also expensive. This limited the school's ability to implement the policy.

The school nutrition and physical activity policy was intended to reduce obesity among children through the use of schools. Schools are required to offer to the students meals that are rich in nutrients and also give

students more opportunities for physical activity. The results of these policies have been that they have only managed to reduce the rate of growth of obesity. This is because there have been budget constraints and less parents involvement in implementing the policy. Although the original goal has not been met, the policies have had a positive impact and with the support of the parents, more positive results are likely to be achieved.