School Lunches: Part 2

See yourbestfitnesscoah.blogspot.com and by Rick Copley's article Part 2 here

Simon says: - A stand out couple of paragraphs that hit me personally from Rick's latest article are these: -

"I mean THE most important thing. How about our health! Learning math and social studies is vital I do know. What good are they when you are dead at 50 from a heart attack?

I would argue that our health is the most important thing in the world. School is such a fantastic platform to teach our kids how to eat."

My 40 year old cousin died last year of a heart attack, as far as I know he has always been overweight and did little exercise as so many people these days. It broke my Aunt and Uncle's hearts and when my Auntie overheard me talking about the alarming obesity rates on the streets of the UK these days she quite rightly felt compelled to express another side to my somewhat one-sided view of "blame the parents".

She explained that they simply didn't know, they were never educated about nutrition and the right foods to eat or the consequences of not eating healthily and doing exercise.

When you think about it no one even knew about the dangers of smoking in those days (except the tobacco companies of course but don't let me get started on that one). Just to put things into perspective, my Aunt and Uncle are intelligent university graduates who became successful professionals but when they were young parents the knowledge simply wasn't generally available.

It is now of course, so parents of today's information age, you have no excuses, you are responsible and you're doing a rubbish job (certainly if you look at the UK and the USA).

However, as Rick clearly points out that health is the most important thing in our lives. I'd personally say happiness is but of course without health then there is no happiness. He also points out that school is a wonderful platform to teach our kids about healthy eating. Exercise too for that matter (so why is Physical education being reduced year on year in our schools? - MADNESS).

So ultimately schools carry their fair share of blame when our kids are being let down. Chips, pizza's and overly processed food should be removed from school canteens, choices should be increased but just healthy ones. We as a society get bombarded with so much crap food anyway the last place we want or need it is in our schools.