Teachers Role and Obesity

Obesity is affecting the children and youth of today.  As teachers our role is to help the  children and parents within our care understand that there are ways to prevent obesity.

According to an article entitled, The Role of schools in Preventing Childhood Obesity, by Howell Wesherler, Mary L. McKenna, Sarah M. Lee and William H.Diaz  “ The physical activity and eating behaviors that affect weight are influenced by many sectors of society, including family, community, organizations, health care providers, faith-based institution, business, government agencies, the media and schools. The involvement of all these sectors will be needed to reverse the epidemic”. (Pge 1)

As educators we need to ensure that healthy eating habits are apart of our daily curriculum, which will help to reduce obesity. We should include the food pyramid guide when teaching lesson about nutrition. We need to educate parents to send in healthy snacks and food to ensure that children are eating junk food, such as apples, carrots etc. Monitor how much food children are serving themselves, if your school does family style during breakfast and lunch time. Teachers along with administrators must ensure that the vending machines that are placed in their program has promote healthy snack. Teachers along with administrators must ensure that the vending machines that are placed in their program have healthy snacks. We should conduct annual assessments of children weight, height and body mass index and make this information available to the parents. We need to be sensitive of children who are obese in our classroom and to treat them with much respect as the other children. We need to and also to look out for bullies who will tease obese children and talk to them about differences.As teachers we have such great influence on the children we serve and we must ensure that we give the children and their parents the opportunity to learn and practice healthy eating habits and exercise.

 Finally, according to the above mentioned article, “obesity is one of the greatest public health, social, and economic challenges of the 21^st century. Without a strong contribution from schools we are not likely to reverse the epidemic”. ( Pge10)  We must play our part as teachers to help reduce obesity in our young children.