14 Dec Is Nutrition Education in Schools Enough?
Your child spends a lot of time at school, and their school environment plays a major role in helping to shape them and their habits. This is particularly true when it comes to healthy eating behaviors. The good news is, many schools have made an effort over the years to improve their nutritional offerings and education for children across the country.
But is this nutritional education in our schools enough?
Unfortunately, while many schools are attempting to make better offerings for their students, the average US student gets less than 8 hours of nutritional education in school every year. Between 40 to 50 hours are needed in order to impact behavioral change.
Many schools are also no longer providing as much instruction for kids about dietary behaviors and nutritious educational activities. This is why it is important to stay involved with your child’s school and to make sure you are aware of what their school is or isn’t doing to help educate students on the importance of nutrition. So, then you can step in if needed.
Nutritional education is an important step in supporting good health and helping prevent chronic disease not only now, but in their future. And many kids are not getting the education that they need in order to understand just how important nutritional education is.
If your school is not willing to change or offer more learning opportunities for its students, then there are things that you can do at home to educate your child on food, health and nutrition. Gardening, cooking lessons, and learning about cultural food traditions are all ways to help your child get a better understanding of the important role that food can play.
Of course, if your child’s school is not offering healthy, balanced lunches, it may be time to start packing your child’s lunch for them, and give them a variety of fruits, vegetables and balanced snacks that they can enjoy during lunch time. This is an easy and effective way to get your child in the habit of eating healthy and making healthy choices (when that is all they have in front of them) every day.
In addition to packing these lunches, make sure your child knows why you are putting certain things in their lunch and why these proteins, fruits and vegetables are healthy and important. This will help create a good habit and important skills your kids can carry on with them to the future.
If you have questions about your child’s nutrition and what you can do as a parent to help, then can call our office directly at 817-617-8600 to schedule an appointment with Continuum Pediatrics today to learn more.