Solution and Advantages of Providing Training and Technical Assistance - Essay Example

?Part I The quality and overall healthfulness of food served in schools goes beyond an issue of ethics and due diligence; rather, it impacts upon theprospective health of the entire nation as the youth of the country who are enrolled in the public schools are oftentimes eating 2 of 3 meals at their respective schools. Such an issue has a profound level of impact as the overall health of the nation, obesity levels, and other salient metrics have been slowly eroding as of the past several years. Although it cannot be stated that a shift in school cafeteria food alone can stymie this eventuality, it can, at the very least, work to promote the ideals of healthy lifestyle and living throughout the many hundreds of thousands of students who will ultimately be impacted by the quality and health content of the meals provided in public schools. As a function of such a realization, it is the belief and understanding of this author that the nutritional quality and content of school meals have fallen of late and continues to face a very real and present threat from the continual reductions in federal funding that are provided to the Department of Education as well as the United States Department of Agriculture. Accordingly, the following analysis will attempt to show some of the ways in which this issue is one of primary prominence as well as a handful of possible solutions to how improvements can be made without a complete overhaul or extensive restructuring of the responsible entities of these programs. Firstly, it must be noted that the quality of school food is not something that deviates from the quality standards of any other type of consumed food product within the United States. Although cost savings is oftentimes a concern, it is not the case that food unfit for human consumption is pawned off on the students. Rather, the issue at hand revolves around the overall nutritional content and caloric quality of the food that is recommended and/or provided. Another key concern is with regard to the linkage between subsidies and the extent to which the USDA is intricately involved in seeking to foster these subsidized foods into the school meal programs (Masse & Niet, 2013). Whereas it is not the point of this analysis to come down on either side of whether subsidies represent a net positive for the economics and business environment within the United States, the fact of the matter is that such actions have a profound level of impact well beyond the realm of business and/or economics. Another issue that has briefly been mentioned within the introduction is the fact that although certain foods are acceptable in order to fulfill a daily nutritional requirement, recent scholarship has increasingly pointed to the fact that a decrease in the quantity of complex carbohydrates and processed foods and an increase in the servings of vegetables and grains have a correlation to increased longevity and health. However, the school meal programs have been virtually unresponsive to such information as they have chosen instead to stand by the standard meal approach that has defined the past several decades (Samuels et al., 2010). This level of unresponsiveness is not befitting of a nation that has only recently seen the obesity rate among children climb over 30% of the entire adolescent population. Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of all of this is concentric upon the fact that successful lobbying by some of the largest and most powerful food producing companies within the United States has all but ensured that these producers and their products will continue to be represented within the nutritional structure of school meals. Whereas lobbying is a way of life for the US Government and the means by which it informs itself of many issues, it is the belief of this analyst that it is fundamentally wrong to allow oneself to be influenced by large multi-national companies as a means of making health and quality of food provided for hundreds of thousands of students throughout the United States (Nelson, 2011). Doing so on a single issue would be one thing; however, as has been discussed at length, the quality and nutritional content of school meals are something that impacts upon a broad segment of society and as such cannot be taken lightly. All in all, the issue that has been discussed is multi-faceted and cannot be reduced to any number of least common denominators. Rather, in order to affect a positive impact on the situation that has been described, it will be necessary for the Department of Education, in tandem with the USDA, to formulate a new way forward that leverages a broader understanding of relevant scientific and nutritional information. By paying attention to key indicators and being aware of the fact that the demographic shift and threat of obesity are something that has come to a far greater level of prominence as compared to the past few decades, a positive impact can ultimately be realized. Part II The quality of school food, which is currently the main concern of local school officials, parents and the children themselves, is obviously the reason behind many of the health and nutritional problems of schoolchildren in America. Nevertheless, the government should not be the only agency through which the problem should be addressed for the reason that the government is not able to tackle an issue that has several facets to it. Satisfaction through school food depends on a number of factors like the overall health status and basic body structure of the child, his personal food preferences and whether or not he is an athlete or he is into sports. It is the interplay of these various factors that define satisfaction, which ultimately determines parental opinion and ultimately the opinion of the local school. Thus, in order to effectively deal with the problem at hand, what is necessary is to address it at the local level through the concerted efforts of the local school, the concerned parents and the children themselves – naturally with the guidance and final decisions to be done by the state or federal government. Therefore, one of the best and most plausible solutions to the problem is to provide training and technical assistance to local schools regarding how and what kind of food should be served. One of the advantages of providing training and technical assistance is that the issue can be addressed right from the source of the complaint. Although parents, children and local schools are not necessarily experts on the science of nutrition and health, they are the ones from whom the complaints come from. Thus, allowing them adequate participation in resolving the issue may somehow mitigate in them the feeling that they are not being heard and that their concerns are not being addressed. In fact, according to the website on the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, parents are actively encouraged to participate in formulating solutions to the problem of nutritionally inadequate school food among schools. Parents are even encouraged by the government to eat breakfast or lunch with their children at school and to visit the school cafeteria in order for them to see what these school meals are like. Thus, through such an experience, parents can properly address any complaint with the school principal, the PTA or the school board (About School Meals, 2013). Another advantage of bringing the solution to the local level is that it is only the local schools, the school board, and the concerned parents who can properly help to implement federal laws on school food. Recently, there has been a proposal from the government to eliminate from schools the foods and beverages normally known as junk foods, which include candy bars, doughnuts, high-fat chips, chocolate sandwich cookies and softdrinks. However, beginning 2014 to 2015, these will be replaced with fruit cups, peanuts, low fat chips, popcorn and granola bars to name a few. This “Smart Snacks in Schools” is what the new change is all about, and it is loosely based on the notion that U.S. kids are often either obese or just plain overweight, and that most of them are developing acquired type 2 diabetes and other problems related to their cardiovascular health (Hellmich, 2013). Without the cooperation of the parents and the local school board, i.e. without bringing down the issue to the local level, there is no way the federal government is able to effectively implement such things. A third advantage of providing technical assistance to schools is the idea that teachers, the children, their parents and even their physicians or pediatricians would become more aware of the issue of the lack of nutritional content of foods in America schools. In fact, the issue is not about whether there exist legislative efforts of some states in order to alleviate the food problem but whether the local school boards are actually seeing to it that these new regulations on school foods are indeed being implemented or not. In fact, the biggest problem is that although some foods have been replaced with nutritious ones, many schools still use the vending machines containing low-nutrient and energy-dense food and beverages that are not only full of calories and harmful cholesterol but also destructive of good appetite (Finkelstein et al., 2008). Thus, providing training and technical assistance to schools, teachers and parents as well as to school pediatricians and dietitians would make them aware of what is actually going on in the school canteen and dining areas and more importantly, what should be changed. The solution to the school food problem issue is technical and training assistance provided by either the state or the federal government to schools. The idea is to bring the issue to the local level in order that it may be efficiently implemented and followed through. This solution has three advantages. First, the solution helps eliminate the source of the complaint – the parents and the children – since both parents and children are needed in order to address the issue. Thus, the parents are given an active participative role in the execution of activities related to the solution instead of just complaining. Second, if the school boards and parents are properly trained, then there is a good chance that the regulations concerning school food problem are properly carried out. Lastly, bringing the issue to the level of the school and parent is the same as making everyone else aware of how serious the matter is and thus requires total participation from all those involved in the growth, health and development of all schoolchildren in America. References About School Meals. (2013). Retrieved from the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/About/faqs.htm Finkelstein, D. M., Hill, E. L. & Whitaker, R. C. (2008). School Food Environment and Policies in US Public Schools. Pediatrics, 122(1), 251-259. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-2814 Hellmich, N. (2013). Junk food getting canned in schools: “Smart Snacks” Replacing Junk Food in Schools. Retrieved from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/27/junk-food-in-schools/2460849/ Masse, L. C., & de Niet, J. E. (2013). School nutritional capacity, resources and practices are associated with availability of food/beverage items in schools. International Journal Of Behavioral Nutrition & Physical Activity, 10(1), 26-37. doi:10.1186/1479-5868-10-26 Nelson, M. M. (2011). The School Food Trust: transforming school lunches. Nutrition Bulletin, 36(3), 381-389. doi:10.1111/j.1467-3010.2011.01914.x SAMUELS, S. E., HUTCHINSON, K. S., CRAYPO, L., BARRY, J., & BULLOCK, S. L. (2010). Implementation of California State School Competitive Food and Beverage Standards. Journal Of School Health, 80(12), 581-587. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2010.00545.x Read More