EUNSEO CHO --- Last year on September 27, the Biden-Harris administration announced a plan to increase healthy eating with physical activity while ending hunger in the United States by 2030. To achieve this goal, the administration laid out a total of five pillars, and one of them focused on improving food access and affordability. The administration explained that one way to improve food access and affordability is increasing access to more nutritious school meals. To enhance children’s access to nutritious meals, the USDA announced to focus on the improvement of school meals on February 3, 2023. USDA secretary explained the importance of healthy school meals: “Many children aren’t getting the nutrition, and diet-related diseases are on the rise. Research shows school meals are the healthiest meals in a day for most kids, proving that they are an important tool for giving kids access to the nutrition they need for a bright future.” The USDA decided to introduce additional elements to the nutrition standard for children’s health. In the updates the department introduced, the department focused on decreasing the amount of sugar and sodium in foods that children typically consume, as these two elements are well-known to cause health issues such as child obesity and high blood pressure. The followings are the updates from the USDA:
Meanwhile, there is a reason that the Biden-Harris administration has been focusing on food and nutritious meals, along with physical activities: food insecurity is one major public health issue in the United States, and children are no exceptions. According to the USDA, 33.8 million people were food insecure, with 5 million children who were food insecure in 2021. Then, what exactly is food insecurity? Food insecurity is a phenomenon in which people have insufficient/uncertain access to healthy food. Food insecurity is a serious problem, as the type and amount of food that people consume can directly affect their physical, mental, and potentially social health. For instance, children who were food insecure were 2~3 times higher to be diagnosed with anemia or asthma. It is important for people to have sufficient access to food, as food directly affects an individual’s health. It is especially important for children to consume nutritious meals, since the nutrients can affect their development. Now is the time for the government to invest in the people’s food and health, especially children. Sources: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0645 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/27/executive-summary-biden-harris-administration-national-strategy-on-hunger-nutrition-and-health/ https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2023/02/03/usda-announces-steps-improve-child-health-through-nutritious-school https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ Comments are closed.
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