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Who will teach our kids to eat better and weigh less? |
Most parents are too time-crunched to teach their children the fundamentals of good nutrition or how to cook. Many don’t even know how to eat well themselves. Thus they set the example that their children follow.
Something’s got to change. And a group of teachers at Trenton Central High School in New Jersey have decided to step in. They’ve created a program called Teem Esteem which teaches young women about good nutrition as part of their standard physical education classes.
Half the students at the school come from low-income households, a group that is at high risk for obesity and its related diseases. The program’s goal is to help these young women make better food choices at the supermarket and when dining out, so they won’t end up overweight, diabetic and with low self-esteem.
Students learn how to read food labels, how to identify fattening and unhealthy ingredients and what a normal portion of food should be. More important, they are learning to make the direct connection between what they eat and how it affects their health and weight.
The girls are guided through a supermarket and taught how to identify nutritious foods. They also get instruction on cooking and hear lectures on topics such as body image and eating disorders.
The program also includes fitness classes which include circuit training, cardio dance and martial arts, and is accompanied by a professional trainer who uses exercise balls and free weights.
And folks, the program is really paying off. Teachers notice a difference in the girls, especially in their motivation and attitude.
One 15-year-old has lost 30 pounds since attending the class. "I eat more vegetables and fruit instead of fried food and junk," she says. "If something has too much salt, I don't eat it."
Another girl now cuts the fat off meat before cooking it and always reads nutrition labels, especially about serving size. "In my household, we really aren't that healthy-eating people," she said. "I learned a lot that I didn't know."
Still another: "I never paid attention to a nutrition label until now — like how much sugar is in things or a serving size," she volunteers. "Now I tell my mom we need to shop better."
And an 18-year-old lost 10 pounds by eating less fat, less salt and by cutting out soda and fast food. "This is going to be a life experience I can share with my cousins," she said. "I could be healthy."
Can you hear the hope in that? “I could be healthy.”
These girls, with the help of their teachers, are fighting for their lives against a juggernaut of fast food and restaurant advertising that isn’t required to carry one bit of information about the fat and calorie content of their meals. Or that is made to account for the health consequences of eating like this.
Where is the AMA? The FDA? The USDA? These organizations are supposed to protect the public’s well-being. Why are so few government and health officials speaking out about the consequences of eating so poorly?
The restaurant industry calls it a “freedom of choice” issue, claiming that people are responsible for the food choices they make. Yet they continue to refuse to print calorie and fat content on their menus. So how are people to make intelligent choices?
This reminds me of the days when the tobacco industry claimed smoking was a “freedom” issue, too. Except they neglected to inform people that cigarettes caused cancer, that nicotine was addictive, or that they manipulated the amount of nicotine to sell more product.
It’s time we realized that the game is rigged against the average Joe and Jane. Food manufacturers make billions selling us products that give us diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and other ills – and then the medical industry makes billions from drugs that treat (but never cure) these conditions.
It reminds me of the movie “The Matrix,” when Morpheus shows Neo how humans are being “grown” by computers in order to extract their bio-electrical energy supply. Aren’t we being kept “in the dark” in a similar way, while huge industries extract our wealth and then discard us as depleted shells?
We need leaders willing to demand that these behemoth industries, at least, tell us the truth about their products.
We need more school programs like Teem Esteem to counter the enormous food propaganda that’s everywhere in our society today.
And we need more parents with the determination to educate themselves and their children about what it takes to be healthy, to have more self-discipline and to create a lifestyle that is more than a joyless conveyor belt ride of consumption from the cradle to the grave.
How do we achieve this? If you have suggestions, I’d like to hear them. If you have examples from your own life, your schools, your friends and neighbors, or your children – please share them here so we can all benefit.
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