Nutrition Problems and Children - Research Paper Example

The children are not active in terms of exercise. They are not living a healthy life as they spend most of their free time watching TV or playing passive games that do not involve active participation.

Nutrition Problems

To ensure that school children have good health both physically and mentally, it is important for the teachers and parents to partner to monitor and advocate for healthy practices for the children in and out of school (Marotz, 2014). In this case, the children are overweight due to the unhealthy practices that they are practicing. Starting with their diet, most of the food they eat is bought from fast food outlets. Such food is rich in calories and sugars. Eating such food is not good for their health since they are not actively exercising to burn the extra calories (BarCharts, 2011). The effect is that they have five to ten lbs. more weight than what is expected for children at their age and gender. The diet that is offered at school is not good. Any school should include dairy, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables in their food which is not the case. In recent research on the relationship between student performance and their health, it was established that obese children are most likely to perform poorer compared to their healthy counterparts (Gardner, 2012). Therefore, their poor concentration is caused by their nutrition problems. On top of that, taking lots of sugary foods has been found to affect the brain negatively impairing memory.

Jane and Peter spend most of their free time either watching television or playing games that do not call for any active participation. Such include video games. Children need exercise to lead a healthy life (Rouffaer, 2014; Sorte, 2013). Since their parents are not free to oversee how the children utilize their free time, they end up indulging in activities that further harm their health. The school does not have a playing ground which is a very basic requirement. Since the children are at school for the better part of the day, the teachers should make sure that they are actively participating in activities that will boost their health.

Suitable Foods and Practices that can improve the Children’s Health

The school should adopt a feeding program where the children are taking food rich in vegetables and fruits on top of whole grain. The parents should try preparing food for the children and reduce the number of times they take food from the fast-food outlets. Alternatively, they can buy food that has less sugar and calorie content from those outlets. These include white meat, fruits, and vegetables. Giving the children excess money to buy snacks is not important. The children are still young and may not make the best choices on their health. The decision on their feeding program should therefore be a partnership between the parents and the teachers or the school nutritionist. Leading an active life is also part of a good program. Instead of spending much time watching the television, and playing video games, they should engage in games that involve active participation to keep them healthy.