My son and I on a field trip to DC. My children are the reason I feel so strongly about this subject.
When I became a mother in the summer of 2005, I knew that I would do anything to keep my child happy and healthy. When my doctor had told me breastfeeding would provide my child with antibodies to fight off sickness and disease and that it also had more nutrients and less allergic reactions then formula, I had no questions as to what choice I would be making for my own baby, needless to say I breastfed.
When my son was old enough to start eating baby food, I visited his pediatrician again, this time discussing the more healthful benefits in making and freezing my own baby food instead of using prepackaged baby food you would find in your grocery store so of course I made my own.
I guess what I am trying to say is most of us as parents do what we can to ensure our children are eating healthy, hitting developmental milestones and getting enough exercise to keep their little bodies as healthy as possible. Shouldn’t we expect the same from the public school system where are children will spend more than 70% of their time from the very young age of 5 until the age of adulthood at 18 years old? Also knowing that during this time, children will either learn healthy or unhealthy ways to eat and exercise that they will look back to for the rest of their lives.
The things we do as parents to ensure our children our healthy goes way beyond what most of us as parents even do for ourselves. At some point in almost all of our children’s lives they will enter into school where we then, as parents, hand over a huge portion of our children’s safety and health to the hands of the public school system, which is not an easy thing to do considering the rising amount of school age children who are now fighting childhood obesity. There are many reasons that could be causing such an epidemic, and I believe most of it is coming from school provided breakfast, lunch, snacks and lack of daily exercise.
