A psychology abstract on the article "Thinning Down School Food." Talks about increasing childhood obesity, and what schools need to do to change it.

Essay by erinxoxHigh School, 11th gradeA+, December 2003

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Thinning Down School Food

Many cafeteria workers across the United States do not believe children standing in their own lunch lines don't suffer from obesity. "Obesity? Not in my school." A study that was recently done in Pennsylvania shows that many cafeteria personnel don't think school meals are a factor of obesity in children.

Claudia Probart, a TK at Penn State University, says that those personnel tested believed there was a childhood obesity problem nationally, but furthermore denied the problem in their own schools. Instead, participants in the survey thought that pop culture, peer pressure, and parental attitudes were the top factors on unhealthy eating habits. The American Obesity Association reports that 15 percent of children are obese.

This survey that was taken is part of the Project PA. This is a program with both Penn State's Department of Nutritional Sciences and the Pennsylvania Department of Education working together to enlist schools in the fight against adolescent obesity.

This new program also includes a workshop on obesity, which trains school employees to encourage better eating habits among students.

Claudia Probart says that school is in the position to be a major role in preventing adolescent obesity. Schools have such a large influence on children's health because kids spend so many hours in the classroom, away from home. Probart offers that after World War II, many programs on school nutrition were started in order to give kids bigger portions and better nutrition. Nowadays, school food lines are once again the leaders in promoting healthy eating habits. Instead of saving children from scarcity of food, they need to save them from excess of it.

Even as juniors, when we're in the last years of our education, school food still plays a big part of our daily nutrition. Now that we're ages 16...