U.S. High Schools Tending to Student Obesity Issues

Students' Food Supervision

High schools in the USA permit students aged between 14 - 18 years for grades 9th to the 12th. While academics, students mental health and physical health can be taken care of by such schools, most of them earn a bad name due to their inadequate food provisions. In such cases, teenagers complain of being overweight and obese. There are many risks related to teen-age obesity like diet-based noncontagious diseases. In Advances in preventive Medicine, published in 2015, a survey was done on 431 school adolescents, and the result was 12.3% overweight prevalence while obesity being 4.4%.

In such serious conditions, USA high schools need to become more strict about their students’ food intake. Most schools have already begun taking major steps in this regard.

School Health Program for physical activity and nutrition 
A Coordinated School Health Program incorporates eight elements of the school community that is directed towards providing student health. Those are:

• physical education,
• health education,
• nutrition services,
• health services,
• psychological counseling, 
• social services,
• healthy school atmosphere,
• family and community co-operation

Through this program a orderly approach to nourishing student health can be taken.  This approach requires systematic assessment of data on students’ health records, sound science and understanding of loopholes and repetitiveness in school health programs, and then decision-making. In 2004, 23 state educational institutes were  funded by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to set up state-level base to execute Coordinated School Health Programs.

Appoint a school health coordinator to run a school health council
When it comes to handling and managing a school health program, a co-ordinator is required to keep every school health program, activity, policy and resources aligned. A school health council consists of members coming from various sectors of the school community, inclusive of school administrators, health care providers, teachers, students, social service activists, religious and civic bodies, and parents. The SHC guides school health coordinators and educational administrators to implement better school health activities and conduct mass meetings for school health workshops. A school health coordinator (SHC) assists the school in building a base for health activities as part of the primal goals of the school in concern and the school district. SHCs have improved school health and physical education curriculum and have aided schools and districts to bring about significant changes in school atmosphere. Few of these changes are:

• the introduction of highly effective nutrition standards, 
• Implementation of walking activities for students and staff, and 
• Keeping school facilities open for physical activity workshops post-school

United States and high school communities can, through their commendable health improving activities, exhibit that health obstacles like overweight and obesity can be subdued. Only if effective plan of action can be enforced and high schools can support such actions, students’ health concerns be taken care off and can be the mental and physical health of young lives can be improved through healthy eating habits.

Written By: Jennifer Einstein
Written For: K12 Lists

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Sources: cdc.gov; hindawi.com; fooducate.com

5 Critical Issues In High School Education

The 2015 NCES data report on the U.S. Department of Education threw light on the dropouts in 2012. The report read that about 2.7 of the ninth-graders of 2009 batch had dropped out by the time 2012 arrived; which means that the students could have been eleventh-graders by that time. So, what other other than social position, parent’s education, family income, could be the reason for those dropouts? There are many challenges in the face of education that bothers the confidence of most students in the high schools. They act as the obstacles in the way of education completion. elements that we need to focus on in order to move forward and offer better opportunities to our students.

• Student-Centred Learning

Student-centered learning includes variety of cognitive learning that helps their academic growth. This learning can range from instructional teachings, educational projects, field-work learning experiences and academic-approach related strategies. Each of these different learning help elevate the cognitive ability and touches every aspect of student interests and goals. But the disappointing part is that most high schools follow structured schedules that cater to completing the course material designed for a particular term. Touching the issues related to religious groups and cultural groups will help students gain interest in their involvement in educational activities and programs, besides studies. Involving them in conversations that are related to them will help them in realizing the importance of school education. Lisa Nielsen had come out with her now famous blog named- “Innovative Educator” blog which emphasizes on the student's  voice, indication power to student learning more than student teaching. 

(Also see, http://k12educationlists.blogspot.com/2016/09/recent-trends-in-k12-education.html) 

• The use of Technology

While most schools would agree that the use of technology in educational programs add value to learning, but there is a vast difference between what needs to be use and what is generally used by schools that are not wealthy enough as their wealthier counterparts. Schools must understand that the use of the right technology is more important than introducing students to unknown technologies that do not urge them to use them at all. Most high schools even now use old technologies to prepare courses, modules, presentations, quizzes, e-learning material, etc. Schools need to evaluate whether they want to use MOOCs for structuring school course or continue to manually prepare them. The term BYOD suits corporate culture more, so schools need to know whether they will like their students to bring devices like iPads, gaming systems, etc.

• Pre-service Programs on Teaching

High schools shape the future of students, and it becomes quite important that every student, who sees their future as a teacher, should be encouraged. Also, the better a school is appreciated, more are the chances that experienced and highly skilled teachers will want to join it. But the grave issue here remains that interference of the policymakers and politicians is also shaping the image of high schools in the USA. Mentioning that schools are unsuccessful in achieving their endeavors, only pushes good teaching professionals to other educational institutes. Alongside, pre-service programs are not of high quality, because of which graduates may feel that they are not adequately prepared for the teaching profession. In 2014 a question was raised on K-12 schools, which asked if these programs, if improvised, can build a powerful gathering of learners.

• School Environment

In 2014, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declared new guidelines as educational disciplinary policies to stop the school-to-prison pipeline and purify school environment. Given that student bullying happens quite a lot in schools and increases chances of students coming in contact with the juvenile criminal justice platforms, these guidelines portray the zero tolerance policies in schools, which decreases such mishaps at the high school level, and helps students know their optimal selves.

• Lifestyle Gap

Of all the students in the high schools across the U.S., approximately 22% of students live in poverty. By the time they go from kindergarten to high schools, they would be knowing 1/8^th of the vocabulary knowledge their richer peers will have known by then. The lack the decent informative resources, and the backward communities where poor students live cannot afford their proper grooming. As serious as it sounds, these issues have been there and still are, though the education ministry is taking disciplined measures to reduce them.

No association can be made big without co-operation, and it all starts with us. Do you have anything to contribute to such high schools? Get in touch with Email Data Group that puts you in touch with key decision makers of high schools through its exclusive email list of high schools.

Posted by K12 Education Lists