Guest Blog Post: School Lunches

This week, my blog will be featuring a post from Cordelia Brand, check out her blog here.

During the school day, even lunch time is an important learning experience. What kids are served or able to buy is influential to student’s perceptions of nutrition. Lunchtime is the only education about nutrition many kids receive until they take an official health class in middle school. While formal nutrition classes aren’t crucial in kindergarten and into grade school, healthy school lunches make a large impact on how children view nutrition.

There are ongoing debates about the health of U.S. school lunches. Schools have to work within a budget, and when budgets are slashed, schools see food programs as an area to cut costs. Mass-produced frozen food is easier to prepare and cheaper for schools to provide, but are often much more unhealthy than fresh and natural food.

When schools serve kids frozen pizza, a can of pop, tinned fruit in syrup, and french fries, kids get the impression that this food is normal. When served these high-fat, high-sugar, low-nutrient dense foods regularly, there are negative impacts on physical and mental health. Not only do kids view these meals as normal and expected, their tastes mold to prefer these foods over healthier ones. Many studies have shown that poor nutrition negatively affects concentration, energy, and motivation. This can in turn lower test scores and happiness, along with increase unhealthy weight.

The U.S. can learn from Japan’s school lunch program. When students bring lunches from home (mostly in junior and high schools), bentos are standard lunch fare for all ages, especially children. Many elementary schools have school lunch programs that serve bento-style foods. They aren’t packed neatly into boxes, rather have smaller portions of a variety of foods. A certified nutritionist plans balanced meals, and food is often local and rarely frozen. Students help out with lunch by taking turns serving food and cleaning up. This gives a sense of responsibility to kids and teaches them different ways to serve a balanced meal. Like in America (although much less so), the meals aren’t perfectly healthy. There is often fried food and always whole milk, but smaller portions of these treats teach kids not to overindulge.

Bento vs. Typical American Lunch
 

Unsurprisingly, Japanese students are among the highest performing in the world. They also have a much lower obesity rate than American children. By comparing the two country’s school lunch programs, this should not come as a surprise. America can learn from Japan’s school lunch culture to teach children about nutrition with healthy, balanced lunches from the start of school.

East vs. West: The Medicinal Victor

I recently suffered from a terrible bout of Mono. For days I laid in bed sleeping anywhere from 12 to 19 hours a day. A week went by and there was no improvement. Two weeks went by and I was actually starting to feel worse as my lymph nodes swelled to the size of golf balls and my throat was so inflamed that my doctor had to prescribe me steroids. After 10 days of taking steroids and antibiotics and seeing no improvement whatsoever, I decided to abandon Western medicine and try out what I had previously been reluctant to do in the practices of Eastern medicine.

My mom knows a woman who spent several years traveling through China, India and the rest of Southeast Asia learning the ways of ancient medicine. At first, I was reluctant to try her strange methods of healing because I thought that Western medicine was the best, and frankly, the only proper way to treat a malady. But I pushed my reservations aside and went to her house where I was immediately taken to a room which looked a lot like a spa, with a massage table and various bottles filled with foreign creams. It didn't look anything like a doctor's office, more like a yoga studio. She told me to lay down on the massage table and relax. Then suddenly she began sticking me with tiny needles. I hate needles, probably more than anything else, but I instantly felt relief as she carefully inserted each needle. Then she handed me tiny glass vials filled with a special salt water solution that was meant to help bring down the swelling in my lymph nodes. Three days and 21 salt water vials later, and I could finally swallow without ay pain in my throat. She also handed me packets of herbal teas with special medicinal properties that reduced my fevers and helped me sleep through the night.

In three weeks' time, I was feeling back to my normal self again. I never in a million years thought that ancient Chinese or Indian medicine would be able to cure an illness that had no known cure. To me, East triumphed over West. And who knows, maybe I'll try out yoga next.

The Right to Fight for Your Life

For many decades, women have been fighting for their rights. In America and around the world, women have been fighting for the chance to vote, be seen as equals in the eyes of men, and work the same jobs for the exact same pay as their male counterparts. When it comes to health, women have worked tirelessly to raise awareness about and promote the well-being of females. However, in many regions of the developing world, women face even more rudimentary problems that can drastically affect their health such as poverty and discrimination. Because so many cultures/societies value men over women, female infanticide, inadequate food and medical care, physical abuse, genital mutilation, forced sex, and early childbirth are just some of the many factors that affect the health of women and can even result in their death. Many of these issues could be solved or prevented if women around the world were given equal opportunities.

In recent years, the major issues with women's rights in terms of health have been centered around the use of contraceptives and the legalization of abortion. For many developing nations, sexually transmitted diseases (such as HIV/AIDS) have lead to the deaths of millions of women. In many cases, these diseases could be prevented if birth control and other forms of contraceptives were more readily available. In Africa, one in 26 women will die of a maternity-related cause. This statistic is shocking and unacceptable.

Another major issue that has been one of the central legal battles of the 21st century is the ethical debate over abortion. In the United States, the court case Roe vs. Wade nullified abortion laws in all 50 states. And while abortion is still legally practiced in a few states, it is performed mostly in secrecy, with consequences severe enough for the medical professional to lose their right to practice or even send them  to prison. But the campaign to make abortion illegal everywhere only further undermines the rights of women. If women cannot choose how to take care of their own bodies or are prevented from making certain medical decisions because of the law, then the politicians need a serious make-over.

Every human being deserves to live a healthy and fulfilling life. Women, no matter how cultural, social, or religious barriers prevent/undermine them, should not be the exception.