For parents who grew up in a time when a classmate’s birthday was celebrated at the school with cake, cookies, and bottles full of soda pop, new regulations that ban these very concoctions may come as a surprise to many parents. However, this fact is not keeping many school districts from their attempts to rid their classrooms and campuses from the sugary snacks that are linked to childhood obesity. In fact, week by week, even as Halloween quickly approaches, the people in charge of monitoring childrens’ health are pushing for more bans of this nature to be enacted across the country.

Of course, these plans are not without their critics. Indeed, there are many parents who are proponents of small-government systems, while others simply believe that the government can serve many useful purposes but should stop short of involving itself with the health and well-being of the population at-large. Nevertheless, the support for these sweeping bans seems to be growing as parents take the time to educate themselves on the dangers of childhood obesity and the health problems associated with not maintaining a well-balanced diet.

One reason that so many parents support these bans is that the rate of childhood obesity in the United States has reached epidemic levels. In fact, some scientists think that this current generation of children will be the first in two centuries to have shorter life expectancies than their parents, mostly due to the effects of poor nutrition and childhood obesity. Since 1974, the 6 to 11 age demographic has experienced an alarming 382% growth in children who are overweight, and the 12 to 19 age bracket has experienced a growth of 258%. Some researchers link this growth directly to the increased consumption of soda among children and to the sale of candy and soft drinks within America’s school systems. Some 93.6% of senior high schools allow the sale of soft drinks on their campuses, and the junior high schools across this country do not lag far behind that number, clocking in at 83.5%. At 58.1%, it’s evident that even a solid majority of elementary schools allow this

That said, as research is continually published and educators learn more about the health problems associated with these sugar-laden products, many schools will move to ban these sugary concoctions from their campuses. In the meantime, many parents will protest that they and their children rely on the convenience that the vending machines provide to their busy schedules, offering snacks and other products that provide a bit of sustenance when full meals are not possible. With a little research, these same parents may be happy to know that there are alternatives to the snack food currently offering in their child’s school system. In fact, busy parents can know that by purchasing snacks from a healthy vending company like YoNaturals, they can have both the convenience of a conventional vending machine and the reassurance that they are not sacrificing their child’s health for that convenience. It’s the best of both worlds.

With so many concerns about the foods we eat, we need to take more interest in what is actually in the foods we eat and feed our families. Many of us become so rushed in our daily lives that we actually become irritated with those who take the time to read the labels on the foods they buy. Unless we raise all of our own food, the only way we can know what is in the foods we eat is by reading the labels. Labels are the manufacturers’ way of providing necessary information to consumers though we still must be careful when accepting the word of the manufacturers.Unfortunately you cannot always take the word of the manufacturer of each product since they are there to sell foods to the public. Processed foods have many ingredients that are not good for anything, including children. The only way to really know what is in the food we eat is to choose natural and organic foods. Choosing foods that have natural ingredients is the only way to not only improve the health of the general population but eliminating the problem of childhood obesity and lazy children. Healthier foods will also improve the concentration of children, allowing them to improve their academic ability as well.

In a perfect world we would not have to worry about what is in the foods we feed our families because we would be able to grow our own fruits and vegetables and grow our own farm animals for meat and dairy products. Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world but rather in a world of packaged and processed foods. Even fresh fruits and vegetables are sometimes questionable, so many people are resorting to organic foods in order to avoid some of the pesticides and other unnatural substances that are going into the foods we eat.

What is the answer to the dilemma that is facing both adults and children? Work schedules are hectic, so it isn’t always possible to cook meals from scratch when we return from work, but that doesn’t mean our families have to live on processed foods. YoNaturals is about the importance of providing our families with natural and organic foods, and with a little bit of reorganization it can be accomplished. Think about it—you buy processed foods that you only need to heat in the oven or the microwave. Why not take the weekends or whatever days you have off and prepare your meals for the week and put them in the freezer? Instead of BUYING frozen dinners, you PREPARE frozen dinners. You know what you put in the meals, and you family still has a home-cooked meal every night.

There is no one step for healthy eating but rather a combination of buying the right foods and cooking those foods in a healthy way. It’s not enough to just buy plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables for your family; you must prepare them in ways that provide healthy choices to high calorie snacks. If you buy a variety of fresh fruit for a fruit salad but add sugar or whipped cream, you are not providing the same healthy nutrition as you would if you served the fruit in its natural state. It’s important for parents to understand the importance of taking time to prepare each food so that they are not adding extra ingredients that are not necessary for good nutrition.

Learning to prepare healthy meals is one of the most difficult things for many people. They buy healthy foods but then turn around and create high calorie fattening meals out of them instead of taking the time to learn how to make that same food tasty but healthy and nutritious. Some of the problem is in our conditioning—we are used to the way our parents taught us to season food using high calorie condiments instead of low calorie fresh herbs and spices. With childhood obesity such a problem, it’s time we learned to not only purchase good wholesome food for our families but prepare those foods in healthy ways as well.

Eliminating the problem of unhealthy and excessive eating requires the willingness of everyone who has the job of preparing food, especially for children. It means returning to earlier times when families ate home-cooked meals instead of processed foods or fast food. It means the person doing the cooking will have to plan meals ahead of time in order to allot the time even if it means preparing and freezing the meals on the weekend or whatever other days are available. It may also mean other family members learning to share in the preparation and cooking of the evening meal.

The choices parents have made since the last half of the 20th century have created caused the dramatic increase in childhood obesity that has ultimately led to adult obesity. These choices include not only nutritionally unbalanced meals but fast and processed foods as well. The habits we have developed are not going to change overnight, but we have to work hard to retrain ourselves to prepare healthy meals for our families. Vendors such as School Healthy Vending and YoNaturals are doing their part by providing healthy and organic snacks and natural juices in their vending machines. If everyone works together to provide assure that the children have healthy meals and snacks, we may eventually begin to see a reduction in the number of children and adults suffering from food-related obesity.

Author: Brenda Coxe