Healthy food should be served in schools

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Healthy Food Should be served in Schools
Thesis statement
The benefits of serving healthy foods in schools far much outweighs any disadvantages associated with it despite the numerous obstacles experienced by schools which have adjusted to the program. Therefore such programs must be promoted by all the stakeholders.
According to Peterson et.al, enrolling into college often brings numerous changes such as making decisions concerning the choice of food by students as majority of dinning halls offer a variety of food staffs thus providing a chance for an individual to serve for himself or herself (425). This therefore has triggered various institutions to guide students on how to make healthful choices in order to stop them from eating foods with high fat contents but instead increase their serving on fruits and vegetables. Moreover , the schools should play a role in ensuring that the students consumes healthy foods by providing information on nutrition, dietary practices and prevention of diseases such as obesity. This can only be achieved if actions are taken to increase information dissemination concerning choice of food, disease prevention and nutrition in the school setting.
For institutions to serve healthy foods, they should be keen on what goes on the social marketing arena as this acts as an effective strategy to encourage knowledge on nutrition among the students as it aims to change their behaviors such as thoughts, values and actions. In addition to that, when students acquire relevant information touching on the benefits of healthy eating habits, they will change accordingly as they will be able to make healthy food choices
It’s widely known that obesity and overweight has been a problems experienced in many of the developed world as a result of poor eating habits. This therefore posses a challenge to both the tutors, parents ,policy makers , food industries and health care professionals to address the problem(Sharma et.al 353). The rapid statistical changes in overweight and obesity and their consequences, have been recognized and campaigns on social marketing has increased world wide. The effectiveness of any eating intervention strategy that is healthy will only depend on the understanding of consumer perspective on food choices especially among the youths. There exists evidence that confirms adolescents being more likely to be overweight unlike adults hence the need to establish factors that might influence their choices of food.
Obesity has resulted to negative consequences which interfere with the students’ performance such as breathing disorders, asthma, hypertension ,decreased self- esteem, laziness, sleeping problems, sweating during normal daily activities, day time sleepiness and moods that are depressive. Sharma et.al (356), confirms that a number of factors play a role in causing obesity. These factors are such as, the quality and quantity of food consumed, greater availability of high-energy foods and takeaways, inadequate physical exercise, inadequate or misleading food labeling and lastly consumer information that is poor.
Fahlman et al. points out that, eating patterns that are established in childhood often r...