Feeding minds entails processes related to acquiring knowledge and improving mental abilities; however, without feeding our bodies, our minds will never be nourished. That is why our school-age children must be taught how to make good food choices and develop healthy eating habits to have the energy to study and learn, and be physically active. Likewise, they will also be protected from debilitating health problems and have better chances of leading healthy lives.
Healthy diets and eating habits are fundamental for schoolchildren’s development, proper growth, and protection from diseases. On the contrary, poor diets and poor nutrition lead to a number of health problems, which handicap people for their entire lives.
Children need to eat healthy and have balanced diets; they need three meals a day, a breakfast before going to school being particularly important to help them learn well. As their bodies grow and develop very fast, they need increasing amounts of food that provide them with energy, such as cereals; help in their growth, such as animal foods, legumes, and oilseeds; and protect them against illness, such as vegetables and fruits. Thus, make sure to include a variety of foods with the right proportions in your child’s diet.
Moreover, healthy snacks between meals provide the child with energy, and helps him/her grow well. However, eating many sticky, sugary and salty snacks, such as sweets, chocolates, candies, and sodas are not good for a child. They do not help the body grow well, nor protect against illness. They can also cause tooth decay, lead to overweight and obesity, and overweight-related diseases.
Families should teach their children how to recognize and choose healthy foods. They should also know what foods their children eat and buy at school, and guide them in their choices. Although families’ roles are essential in shaping children’s eating behaviors, they cannot achieve this goal on their own when the culture has greater influence on food-related beliefs, values, and practices.
Schools must support teaching children basic skills of food and nutrition; they are an ideal setting for this. They can help children practice healthy eating and resist social pressures, which discourage healthy eating. As a matter of fact, schools are regarded in many communities as the only place for children to acquire these important life skills.
Through implementing various activities at schools, children, adolescents, as well as their families’ nutritional well-being and healthy life-long eating habits will be developed. Many health problems due to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, such as preventable childhood blindness—due to vitamin A deficiency—and intellectual disability and brain damage in children—due to iodine deficiency—could be prevented or significantly reduced using effective school programs.
These programs shall integrate food and nutrition education in the school curriculum, as well as engage children in practical activities. The programs might include, for example, growing fruits and vegetables in school gardens, preparing food, and improving school meals.
Governments recognize the importance of school feeding in the development and growth of children, communities, and society as a whole. School meals, for example, help children grow, concentrate better, and succeed. They support development so children can become healthy and productive adults, breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty.
In poor countries, school meals provide an incentive to families to send and keep their children at schools. These meals are often the only regular meal a child receives. The World Food Program (WFP), one of the largest humanitarian providers of school meals worldwide, states that nearly all countries around the world have a school feeding program, and at least 368 million children from kindergarten to secondary school receive food at school everyday. Unfortunately, many more children do not benefit from this program in countries with high poverty rates.
“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.” – Chinese proverb.
In many countries, whether food supplies are scarce or abundant, diet-related chronic diseases exist. It is crucial to know how to make the best use of our resources to ensure nutritional wellbeing. Families and schools do not bear the responsibility of improving the diet of children on their own. All the society sectors must cooperate to promote better nutrition and good diets, develop life skills, and increase environmental awareness among our children.
References
www.cdc.gov
www.fao.org
www.unicef.org
www.wfp.org
www.who.int
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