When I was in third grade, my teacher had a “vegetable tasting day” for us. We each brought in a vegetable from home and shared it with our classmates. I remember coming home, excited, and announcing to my mother that I had fallen in love with rutabaga. After a startled moment or two, she smiled and promised to make it for me. That vegetable tasting day introduced me to one new favorite, but it also changed my attitude about all vegetables.
Our schools can have an important impact on the way we see nutrition, and America has never needed this more.
We are an unhealthy nation; by almost every metric, we are doing worse than other wealthy nations. According to the National Institutes of Health, the United States has the highest rate of obesity among high-income nations, and it has the highest rate of diabetes. We rank second among our peer countries for coronary heart disease (related to high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and obesity), and once Americans reach age 50, their cardiovascular risk profile, according to the NIH, is the worst among comparable nations. The Commonwealth Fund reports that we have the lowest life expectancy at birth and among the highest infant mortality and maternal mortality rates of our peer nations. We have, as the Commonwealth Fund puts it bluntly, “the highest death rates for avoidable and treatable conditions.”
You don’t need statistics to know this is true — just take a look at what young people eat. Candy. Cakes. Chips. Fast food burgers, hot dogs, fries, sugary soft drinks. Young people are tempted to eat these things often because they are convenient, fast and seem inexpensive. Unhealthy food has become accepted, normalized, in our society and is everywhere around us. It is so pervasive that it is hard to believe that it is hurting us.
There is nothing wrong with occasionally grabbing something to eat that we know is bad for us. We can all survive an unhealthy indulgence from time to time, but if we allow our young people to develop the habit of eating unhealthy food, they will suffer the serious consequences that inevitably follow.
Education can make a difference. If we can show young people how important a healthy diet is, we can provide them with a foundation for the rest of their lives. Individual teachers can help with this, but they can’t do it alone. Events like a “vegetable tasting day” can be wonderful, but by themselves, they aren’t enough. Teachers need the support of school boards willing to focus more on the long-term health of students than on popular culture issues. Perhaps it’s time for all states to offer a required, stand-alone course on nutrition. What better investment could we make in our children’s future?
Most public schools pay some attention to nutrition, which is good, but the message doesn’t seem to be getting through. Our young people are suffering from health problems for many reasons, but poor eating habits are a major factor. Too much fast food. Too much junk food. Too much ultra-processed, low-nutrition food.
Parents can also play a role. First and foremost, they can model healthy eating themselves. Their children will never take nutrition seriously if they don’t see their parents heating a healthy diet. And parents can get involved with their schools. Why not form a “Moms for Nutrition” organization with the same commitment and zeal of “Moms for Liberty,” and let our school boards know that this should be a priority?
There are issues, such as poverty, that education alone cannot solve. Good quality food might ultimately be less expensive, but only if you have the time to plan, shop and prepare your meals, which often isn’t possible for those who work long hours at low pay. And food deserts — high-population areas without grocery stores — make it even more challenging. If you can’t find nutritional food, you end up taking what you can get.
One thing is clear: We are allowing our young people to grow up unhealthy. If we want to change this, we need to come together — teachers, parents, school boards — to improve things. If we are serious about making America a truly great nation, we need to secure the health of our children.
Solomon D. Stevens of North Charleston, a retired professor of constitutional law, American government and political theory, is a regular contributor to the Opinion section. Reach him at [email protected].