Healthy Kids Initiative Research Paper

The Healthy Kids Initiative is a great program because it promotes physical activity and support to America’s schools through activating grants, assisting with development of school health teams and assessing schools’ health environment, as well as other tools and resources. Many children are not given enough food because of lack of funds at home, or lack of care for what they do eat. So some children and being fed cheaper and more unhealthy food. With the Healthy Kids Initiative, schools are able to provide to students when parents can’t. As the economy struggles, many families get hit hard with financial burdens, such as not having enough money to feed children three healthy meals that are necessary to live a healthy life. This also causes children to become less active because they are not getting enough of the right types food, so they don’t have the energy to go out and play. This then leads to childhood obesity because the children are being fed cheaper food, which is full of sugars and fats. Since unhealthy food is cheaper, it is easy for struggling families to buy frozen pizzas, chips, and sugary breakfast foods instead of salads, meats, and produce to fill the daily needed nutrition. Homes and families are not the only ones that struggle to find the money to give the children healthy and nutritious food that they need each and everyday, but so do many school districts. School is where most children get their daily meals and if schools are unable to provide the nutrition that they need then the children will most likely go without all together and that can lead to obesity and more sickness in children. The first step towards making school lunches healthier and more filling for the students started with the USDA. The USDA held a convention with many different vendors that school administration could attend to learn new ways of provide for their students. They were shown new and better ways to serve food or offer the healthier food that the children are in need of. The USDA Foods Distribution program provides a cost savings to school districts and at the same time provides nutritious foods that appeal to children’s tastes.(Kemptville Advanced-Accent Weekender) Because not only getting the food into schools is a big part, but then getting the children to eat and enjoy the new healthier food is a huge step. Especially in younger children, they think vegetables are the enemy. Since the whole point of this program is to assist school districts in lowering costs and provide students with healthy options they need to find options that will make the children actually want to eat the food. This convention by the USDA also allows schools that are participating in the National School Lunch Program to utilize their foods and distribute them to processors who make nutritious, reduced-fat, lower sodium, whole grain products at a cost savings to school districts.(Kemptville Advanced-Accent Weekender) With this advantage schools that have been struggling to find the …show more content…
Many different associations along with the First Lady plan on doing this by showing children what it means to be healthy. Children have been getting more and more diseases that are more common in adults than in children. This country can not afford to have the medical bills of so many obese children getting diabetes and high blood pressure, but this country can afford to make their lives healthier and more active.(White House Press Release) Along with all of the positives of the Healthy Kids Initiative there has been a big obstacle and that is that children are getting exposed to fruits and vegetables that they are not given in the home or have any experience with in general. This causes children to be less eager to try the new foods along with they might not like the healthier options if they are used to sugary fat filled foods. Many students also say that the food in general is just plain gross. As a student at Winterset who has made the change to healthier food, some of their options are worse than greasy food, on taste, look, and smell. The whole wheat noodles have no flavor and the waffles are hard as rocks. Besides