Its All About Education

In recent times we have heard many stories about schools trying to substitute healthier snacks in the machines and on the menus for school lunches, or trying to remove the sale of things like chocolate milk and sodas, all in hope of getting kids to eat healthier substitutes. But is it working? As someone seeking a job in the education field, maybe a change of thought process may be in order that you can help initiate.

Recent reports in a New York school found that the newer healthier vending machines rarely ever get used, and just get bypassed for the machines offering the typical chips and drinks. While students are fine with choosing a healthier chip selection, like baked chips instead of normal, they were not as interested in things like apples or carrot snacks, at least not having to pay for such things.

Of the machines in use, the healthy machines only sold 296 items (a $388.75 total) over a three week time frame. This is less than a third of the sales that were made by the less healthy machines, and even these sales were dominated by baked chips, which although are a little better than the typical chips, is not much of a healthier choice. Students seemed uninterested in the healthier fruit smoothies or fresh fruit selections.

While it hasn't necessarily been a major success, the options are there, and hopefully children will begin to make better choices. But I think the secret to better success is more education. How much are the students being taught about the affects of food on health and longevity? How much is really being taught on this subject? How often are schools sponsoring the showing of movies like "Super Size Me" or "Food Matters" or the large amount of similar type movies that discuss the affects of food and nutrition on the body?

Is a decent amount of the proper education being supplied to the children (at school or home), that could help give the initiative to students to eat better? On top of that, is the food and snacks they are getting at home also improving? Are parents educating and forming good/better eating habits in their kids? All of this is necessary to turn the tide of habitual junk food eating.

Hopefully, as the education industry becomes more concerned with this issue, they may seek to invest more time in education surround this topic. Maybe you could be another voice in the topic, and keep suggesting such changes in whatever area you are working in.

Jeff McCormack resides in Virginia Beach, VA. where he works as a web designer by day. In his off time he is a husband, father, mail order book store manager, and musician. Aside from being a freelance writer for this Education Jobsite blog, he also seeks to assist in career choices and information by contributing to other Nexxt blog sites.