Improving Eating Choices in Public Schools

¶ … public health threats, many grassroots organizations and individuals have found writing letters to the editors of their local newspapers to be an effective means of raising public awareness concerning these threats (White & Olson, 2010). A sample letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer concerning the alarming prevalence of childhood obesity in the Philadelphia community in general and inner-city communities in particular is provided below.

Dear Editor,

Public school students in Philadelphia need healthier choices in school cafeterias. As many people in Philadelphia already know, the prevalence of childhood obesity in our community is at near-epidemic levels. Nationwide, the increase in the number of overweight and obese American school-aged children has been staggering (McDuffie & George, 2009). In fact, in 2004, fully 16% of all young Americans were overweight and another 34% were at high risk of becoming overweight and these rates were far higher and increasing faster for poor, inner-city African-American school children (McDuffie & George, 2009). Unfortunately, the problem has become even more severe since that time and the obesity levels for adolescents have doubled over the past 20 years and tripled over the past 40 years (McDuffie & George, 2009).

Part of the problem is the type of foods that are typically consumed by adolescents during the school day where the cafeteria environment, staff and available food choices influence eating habits (McDuffie & George, 2009). In many cases, the food choices that are available to Philadelphia public school system students are high-fat or sugary items including French fries and soft drinks (McDuffie & George, 2009). In fact, American adolescents consume more than 33% of their calories from saturated fats because French fried potatoes comprise 25% of their vegetables (McDuffie & George, 2009). These are important issues because young people consume a significant percentage of their food and snack intake during the school day (McDuffie & George, 2009).

Moreover, many schools in the Philadelphia school district have a closed-campus policy that prevents students from eating off campus, thereby restricting their food choices to what is available in the schools (McDuffie & George, 2009). When the city's schools restrict students to campus and fail to provide them with healthy eating choices, they are virtually ensuring that the obesity problem will not only get better, it will inevitably worsen. Because poor, inner-city African-American school children are at higher risk of becoming obese and many schools in Philadelphia are 100% African-America, these problems will become even more severe unless something is done to fix the problem today.