Public Health in Oregon - Join The Conversation

During one of my mba healthcare administration research projects, we had to design a healthy diet awareness campaign. It was amazing because I learned so many things I didn`t know prior to it. And afterwards we had to complete the task with a fund raising application toward the local budget representatives. All in all, it was a very instructive experience.

The issue of junk foods in schools is an interesting one.  Children (let alone everybody) ought to eat predominately healthy foods, and that typically means offering mainly healthy foods in schools.  That being said, I believe it is acceptable to offer children small quantities of unhealthy food every once in a while.  Moreover, I believe that students going off campus to purchase foods that are no longer sold inside the school is something that ought to be prevented more by educating the students than by more direct means, such as outlawing particular types of fast food (although I am aware that the article did not suggest such means).
The issue becomes more complicated when it is no longer a question of what decisions students should be allowed to make for themselves.  That is, the fact that healthy food is typically more expensive than unhealthy food is something that must also be considered.  Pam Fessler’s article “Eating Nutritiously a Struggle When Money Is Scarce” points out that many families who are in poverty are also ironically overweight, which can be attributed to the fact that unhealthy foods are simply less expensive, for the most part.  Who is to blame and how we should solve this problem are questions that are even more complicated than the issue itself.  Peter Jennings suggests in his video “How to Get Fat without Really Trying” that both the food industry and the government negatively contribute to the issue.  I am hesitant to declare with certainty exactly how much blame should be put on each entity simply because the problem is far too complex to be solved by mere finger-pointing.  I have recently been considering studying economics in graduate school; perhaps there I will be able to find a solution that will minimize the number of people affected by this issue.

“Eating Nutritiously a Struggle When Money Is Scarce” by Pam Fessler:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128621057

“How to Get Fat without Really Trying” by Peter Jennings (video):
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/peter_jennings_reporting_how_to_get_fat_without_really_trying/