Having identified obesity in schools as a problem, we need to look at ways we can incorporate more exercise in schools. Developing an overall school fitness program needs to include school exercise programs in addition to teaching healthy eating habits and establishing healthier school lunch menus. Only with appropriate exercise programs can we really begin to have an affect our students’ struggle with obesity.

Ketchup and pickle relish are definitely not vegetables! In 1981, the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture Food and Drug Administration (USDA) proposed reclassifying these condiments as vegetables to allow public schools to cut out a serving of vegetable from the school lunch program and save an estimated $1 billion annually in the cost of subsidized meals for low income students. Understandably, the proposal was met with outrage by parents and nutritionists alike and was never actually implemented. In January of this year the USDA met to propose the first changes it has made in 15 years to raise the nutritional standards of the school lunch. It seems that the current level of obesity (a reported25 million children) is the push behind the change in what will be offered on school lunch menus.