A report of a recently conducted study finds that the availability of healthy snacks in US high schools is largely missing which should be rectified at the earliest.
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation submitted at report after a study that they recently conducted stating that the option of healthy snacking is largely unavailable in most US high schools. The report also stated that in states such as Connecticut and West Virginia students have easier access to junk food like chocolates and potato chips rather than say an apple of a celery stick which directly affects their health.
"Under this patchwork of policies, the majority of our nation's children live in states where less-healthy snack food choices are readily available," researchers wrote in their report, part of the groups' joint Kids' Safe and Healthful Foods Project. "In nearly three-quarters of the states, a substantial percentage of schools sell low-nutrient, high-calorie snacks such as chocolate, other candy, or full-fat salty chips."
The researchers analyzed 2010 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and found that obesity during childhood and adolescence has increased by thirty percent due to the consumption of fast food.
"Students spend more time in school than any other place other than their home. So we really need to pay attention to what is happening in the high school environment," Jessica Donze Black, director of the Kid's Safe and Healthful Foods Project, told Take Part. The project is a joint initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
"The high school may be the last frontier in terms of addressing that," Black said. "These are kids who are at the point where they are making their own choices. We want all of those choices to be healthy choices. We can expose them to things they might not otherwise choose...A lot of schools that offer healthy foods in schools say kids will eat them. "
"The bottom line is: it's clear that so many children are being served less healthy snack foods in their school, and that really is something we could do something about," said Erik Olson, director of Food Programs at Pew's health group.
