If you don’t think your diet has an effect on the way you feel, try loading up on sugary foods and see how rundown you feel. Better yet, try spending a week eating nothing but natural and organic foods and see how much better you feel. Perhaps the cost of natural foods is a little higher than that of processed food, but one cannot put a price tag on your health. The amount of processed and junk food we have come to consume as a nation is currently at epidemic proportions and unless we do something about it now, we will soon have a nation of children who don’t know what a home-cooked meal is.
Children today not only eat too much junk food but they do not exercise like past generations. It is easier to sit in front of the television or computer than to go outside and throw a ball around or ride a bicycle. The lack of exercise and a poor diet contribute to the lack of energy in today’s children. While children in generations past have enjoyed many different activities, the late 20th and 21st centuries are seeing children who consider any exercise beyond going to the Mall and real chore. Is it really that the children are lazier than in generations past? The problem is not that children are lazier than in the past but that their poor diets and lack of exercise causes them to be less energetic than those of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation.
What is the answer? Learning to eat right has to begin in childhood—even infancy—if we are to make it an effective transition. Providing healthy natural snacks such as the items School Healthy Vending provides in their machines is a potential solution for schools, but the total solution to the problem requires the cooperation of all parents and adult caregivers as well. If we begin feeding our children healthy and natural foods we will see a definite improvement in their stamina and concentration levels. When we can get the children to concentrate better, their grades will improve. That doesn’t mean they can never again eat at their favorite fast food restaurant, but the trips should be minimal and still under the control of an adult.
Author: Brenda Coxe
