Currently US students receive less than eight hours of required nutrition education throughout each school year. And according to the CDC this number is far below the forty to fifty hours that are needed to affect behavior changes. Seeing as a the foundation for a healthy life span is laid in childhood, we argue that the bulk of the funds and resources needed to reach the required hours of nutrition education should go towards elementary school within the US. Within the study Improving Nutrition Education in U.S. Elementary Schools: Challenges and Opportunities, the researchers explains that elementary school teachers have a strong personal motivation to teach nutrition and dietary behaviors to their student. However, one of the greatest barriers for nutrition education in these schools is the lack of time teachers have to incorporate this new information into their daily lesson plans. This is often due to the fact that teachers would rather focus on material that will be included on the state-wide tests, which tend to fund schools and depending on the district may even affect the teachers salary. Thus, we propose that the quickest way to include and improve nutrition education within school curriculums is to integrate it into state-tested subject matters.
Possible Opposition:
While some may argue that this will simply elongate the eight hour school day while forcing teachers to do more work, we disagree. The study published by the Journal of Education and Practice discovered that most teachers saw both math and English language classes as well suited for embedding information about nutrition and modeling desirable food choices (Perera et al. 46). Therefore, school districts must develop lesson plans containing nutrition information that is embedded in science, math, reading, and writing course.