How much have a problem has child obesity become? Child obesity is now a National Security threat. Obama and his administration feel that childhood obesity is decreasing the number of people in the military and people able to be in the military because of just being too obese to fight. They are trying to make the case that improving the quality of school meals and ridding schools of junk food is critical to combating child obesity and ensuring that young people are fit for possible military service. I do not think this will solve the issue though; that would just control the food intake at school, but it will not help what they are consuming out side of school. The childhood obesity epidemic is because of a lack of parental control, which the government can not really enforce, sure healthier lunch at school will help some, but it wont make the change that they are looking for. Only 25% of 18-24 year olds can join the military because everyone else is overweight or have other disqualifying issues, such as a criminal record or inadequate education. Being overweight is by far the leading medical cause for rejecting potential recruits. These statistics should show America how fat our people have become because of our fast food and just pure laziness. We need to do something to fix the obesity problem in America, but Obama is just helping one aspect, when we need a lot more then healthier schools to fix childhood obesity. If we do not fix this problem soon we might have to reinstate the draft because we do not have enough people joining the military. This might not work either because they can not recruit overweight people, which is most of America.
This link is a news article about Child Obesity Called National Security Risk:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100421/BUSINESS01/4210361/Child-obesity-called-national-security-risk
So how can we help combat against obesity? One of the best ways to do this would be to have Physical Education, PE, required for each grade and for every state. While most states have some regulations for PE, they do not have a required amount of time that the students must be in gym. 12 states even allow PE credits to be earned through an online class! PE classes promote healthy choices. But just adding PE regulations for all states to mandate gym classes will not complete the job. In these PE classes, students need to learn about the importance of physical activity, how to stay active, and the correct/safe way to be active. Gyms need to be properly equipped with supplies and they need to have safe gymnasiums to participate in. Children need to learn the importance of physical activity; they need to be given plenty of choices of things that they can do to stay active. A PE reform needs to take place so that our country stops this epidemic.
This link is about the article Obesity Won’t Improve Without Reforming PE:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/obesity-wont-improve-without-235301.html
Posts
