In this article from The Washington Post, reporter Chico Harlan shines a harsh light on America's school lunch program by highlighting Japan's success with their healthy and efficient system. Chico talks about how Japan takes its national health seriously so it's no surprise that their schools have made home-style meals from scratch for the past four decades. Over the past three decades alone, obesity rates have tripled in the U.S. In contrast, Japan's child obesity rate is among the world's lowest, there is practically no malnutrition caused by poverty, and the World Health Organization claims the upcoming generations of Japan will live to an average of 83. While you might think that's a big claim simply based on school food, it is largely supported by the fact that children are taught a specific mindset to learn about their food and accept it, picky eaters are even worked on to prevent them from becoming unhealthy eaters later on. Something I found surprising was that there was relatively little guidelines or government regulations on recipes, whereas in the U.S. we keep trying to pass legislation to serve healthier food that ends up provided and frozen by large food industries anyway. It just goes to show how the difference in culture plays a role in our food. Japan values health and saving while we value business and fiscal efficiency. Harlan leaves reader querying by quoting government director of school health education, Masahiro Oji's words, "What is most difficult for me to explain is why we can do this and other countries cannot". Do you think the American culture is the only thing preventing us from improving our school lunch program or is there some other lurking factors?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/on-japans-school-lunch-menu-a-healthy-meal-made-from-scratch/2013/01/26/5f31d208-63a2-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html?utm_term=.03a490689e28
Harlan does a great job of illuminating the problem. The fact that they are using real ingredients in their lunches is a fantastic idea. In the article that i posted, The author describes that one of the solutions to our unhealthy food system is the use of locally grown products to make healthy food for students. I would like to use this article in my research paper to show that doing this would be a positive thing in our communities. I wouldn't blame our culture, necessarily, but I would blame the laziness of the average eater for being okay with our current food system; honestly we all have in our own way.
ReplyDeleteThe author does a great job of reflecting the results of an eating style that is healthier than that show cased in the United States. The fact that he shares information, such as children asking their parents to recreate meals they had at school, makes it seem as though the Japanese school lunch program puts its student's health as a high priority. This article seems like a reliable source due to its publication on the Huffington Post website. I don't think it's the American culture that causes people to have poor standards of eating healthily; however, it's the convenience that having processed, warm-up ready food, that has shifted the mindset of the importance of eating well.
ReplyDeleteI really like this article. Myself being part of a classroom in Japan for a few weeks, I was able to see how different lunch is in comparison to us. Food is actually brought into the class, and the meal you receive is complete, something you would probably eat at home. I think that getting a nutritionist to design the recipes is a great idea that will lead children wanting food that is actually nutritious. I feel that with the U.S. the standard for lunches is just not there, giving us heavily processed food and stuff considered junk, and even with the newer food regulations the standard hasn't necessarily increased, just that the food tastes worse. I haven't eaten school lunches in a long time and instead brought food from home; simply if your parents wouldn't give you this to eat everyday, why should the schools?
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