School and Kids: The Solution

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

“Eat your carrots and you’ll have eagle eyes.” 

"Eating bread crusts puts curly hair on your chest."

“If you swallow too many watermelon seeds, a tree will start growing in your stomach.”

“If you eat spinach and you’ll have Popeye muscles!” 

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” (…or anyone, if you throw it hard enough)

Most parents tell these silly little tales to their children to promote healthy habits at a young age. Hearing this from our parents while we were growing up, we often subconsciously assume that we'll live longer than our parents, but this may not necessarily be the case.

Super-sized America!

When I was little I loved the days I played at my best friends house because here mom would always let us drink sprite or root beer with our lunches. My mom on the other hand would always make us drink water or milk… “No fair!” is what I used to tell my mom. “All the other kids get to drink soda.” Now I am forever grateful as is my waistline for my mom teaching me at a young age to avoid sugared soda.

Obesity has become an epidemic, and I believe a main contributor to this problem is that America has become super-sized. Americans are consuming much of their daily calories just in the sugary sodas that they drink. I believe that although America is super, we must stop everything from being super-sized. We must impose regulations and implement programs to end this epidemic before our country suffers too greatly from this disease.

Cafeteria Food: Cleaning up School Kitchens

If you’re anything like me, you probably remember lining up in alphabetical order and heading to the cafeteria every day in elementary school.

The lunch ladies wore funny plastic hairnets, and the old cheese and slimy ground beef on taco salad days always kept you wondering whether a food poisoning outbreak was anywhere in the near future.

Do you remember mixing all of the condiments together and then putting it on top of what kind of looked like green beans? The best part of that process was daring the kids you really didn’t like to eat it!

Those were the days. Well, I guess a few of you still do that at the Cannon Center.

What is Actually Replacing Gym Class

Source: http://www.ragestache.com/Comics/Every-Day-In-Gym-Class/41091

Recently, my cousin from Indonesia moved from the United States to live with my family and continue his education here. I was talking to him on the phone the other night asking him how he found the education here as compared to Indonesia. He told me he found the whole high school system odd because he has never taken a gym class. 

In Indonesia, like in many Asian countries, school is where students study for at least eight hours, sitting in desks and nothing more. The only time they leave their classrooms is during lunch, when they go to the bathroom, or when they are leaving home. This schedule not only applies to high schools, but also to intermediate and elementary schools. 

This spiked my curiosity: how can students- especially hyperactive 7-8 year-olds- stay in desks for such long periods of time. Even kids in America can't stay still for the average 6.5 hours a day they spend in school!

Advertising: A Hinderance

As a young child, I vividly remember being drawn in by the bright colours, exciting music and familiar cartoon characters shown on television advertisements.  Have you ever noticed that most of the T.V. ads aired during the day are geared towards children, and quite a bit of it revolves around junk food? I would beg my parents to buy these sugary cereals or happy meals for me because I assumed this was "normal" food.

 “You don’t understand!” I’d cry. “If I don't eat this, I'll never be cool!” 
Sound familiar?   

photo credit: http://yaquz001.blogspot.com/2010/03/pester-power.html

Everybody knows that obesity is a problem in America which is only getting worse, especially among children. It is also well-known that most children are visual learners. If they like the look of something, they tend to want it. In fact, according to a 2007 study conducted by Stanford University, by the age of 2, children have already formed opinions about specific brands, while by the age of 6, they are familiar with major brands’ logos, names and packaging.