Nutrition in kids hits home with me every day. I may work with older children in an after school setting, but I have been around children my entire life. I have seen children that are underweight and I have seen children that are overweight. It hurts my heart when I see these children because I am positive that they are either not being fed enough or fed too much. However, I do also realize that some children just choose not to eat because they are either picky eaters or they are to interested in playing so they don't eat as much as they would normally.
       I also hate when I see some of the food items that parents pack in their children's lunches. I am sorry but Oreos, Doritos, fruit snacks and a leftover piece of pizza do not constitute a great lunch for children. I am not the master at packing lunches, but what happened to a peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread, an apple or banana, carrots or celery and a yogurt. I understand that no child wants all healthy stuff so I would throw in a small bag of chips or 2 cookies. That at least helps children as they grow to make better choices when eating out and while snacking at home.
       Another aspect of nutrition among children that bothers me are the school lunches. A chocolate chip waffle with syrup does not cover all of the food groups. We, as a country, complain about child obesity, yet we do not provide nutritional lunches or enough physical activity because reading and writing are more important than the health of our children. You can't tell me that 20 mins a day of physical activity is that hard to incorporate into curriculum.
       Nutrition around the world is always a debate because there are so many countries that are poor and do not have the resources that the United States does. However, many of the countries that are poorer economically, do have a very large amount of land that they can use to provide fruits and veggies throughout the country. However, the price of these crops doesn't always allow for families to afford the food that they need. Then where there seems to be enough money, people still eat poorly by eating junk, too little or too much.
       Nutrition is always a hot topic for me because I do work with children everyday and I always cringe at what I see my children eating. I wish that I could pack their lunch or provide the school lunch for them because I am appalled at what constitutes a lunch these days. Nutrition isn't a part of the curriculum anymore either which doesn't help teach the children at least an iota of education regarding nutrition.

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