March 24, 2024. By Pinyu Chen.
Did you know that 14% of children ages 2-5 have obesity? Did you know that this put them at increased risk for developing chronic conditions, like diabetes and high blood pressure, later on in life? The current trajectory puts 57.3% of today’s children developing obesity by the time they are 35 years old. Some of you might be thinking, “We’ll just tell children to start eating healthier. It’s not a big problem to fix.” But what exactly does it mean to “eat healthier”? Do you know what you would do to start eating healthier and make informed food choices?
As a kid growing up, I never received any sort of real nutrition education, so I trusted the food commercials on TV and the claims on food packaging. There was plenty of misinformation presented about foods. I still remember seeing all the ads for “low-fat foods” or for products like “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” being promoted. Generations were easily influenced because they didn’t have the necessary background nutrition knowledge to realize that they were being deceived.
It is so important for children to have the skill set to combat misinformation about foods and learn how to make informed food choices. If we start teaching this when they are young, it will create healthy eating habits that will not only carry over into their adulthood but also to their families. It will improve their physical and mental health, and overall, enrich their development at every stage of their childhood.
As a 4th year medical student and NC Albert Schweitzer fellow, I am doing my part to advocate for the inclusion of nutrition education for medical students and am now calling for its inclusion in public schools for children. I am calling on the public, and especially parents, to talk to the superintendents and public school system administrators to make a change and start making it mandatory for children in pre-K to 12th grade to receive basic education about nutrition and ways to eat healthy. It takes only one of you to start the conversation during school board meetings.
So far, the only real effort to help our children eat healthier in public schools is through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 that was championed by First Lady Michelle Obama. A study came out in 2016 by Johnson et al. that found that the kids that participated in this program chose to eat foods higher in nutrients years after their time in the program ended and had a better understanding of food.
Let’s go back to the beginning to fix the low food literacy that most of our population suffers from. Let’s try to prevent chronic diseases, such as obesity or diabetes, from developing in the first place. Let’s go back to basics to equip our children with the tools to make informed food choices when they are still young.
Pinyu Chen
NC Schweitzer Fellow 2024-2025
Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Class of 2025
Content expressed is solely the personal opinion of the author.