Obesity and Junk Food in Canadian Schools

Looking around the cafeteria, how many familiar faces do you recognize purchasing the same product of hamburgers, fries and coke from the day before? Most Canadian children are flunking when it comes to their nutritional daily intake. Children gobble down hamburgers and fries over once a week at the school cafeteria. Most surveys are based on Americans; however, this survey clearly shows the performance of Canadians, and we sure are not weaker than the Americans. This is mainly because the parents do not know their children's eating habits at school and they are not aware of the food their children eat during school hours like coke, hamburgers, fries etc. With teenage students who get an income from their job or even an allowance, many spend it all on junk food in the cafeteria, and the vending machines conveniently located EVERYWHERE.

A telephone survey of 500 households with children aged 6 to 17 was given in March. Parents and children were both questioned, and the results received were considered to be accurate within a point range of 2.19% - 19 out of 20 times. According to the survey, 42% of six - seventeen year olds in Atlantic Canada met the minimum requirements of fruits daily, and 69% passed the test in Quebec. However, those in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan barely pass. Less than half of the age groups in Atlantic Canada have met the requirements of 2 servings of grain per day. Not enough children drink milk, soy drinks and orange drinks at a regular basis neither, and across the country 25% of the children eat fries twice or more weekly which is considered more than enough. One soft drink daily varies from 19% in Quebec all the way to almost 50% in Atlantic Canada.

As the surveys results show, not enough of children have a good diet, and a good diet relates to a good ability to learn. In Nova Scotia, half of the deaths have been related to heart attacks, diabetes, and strokes all cause of unhealthy diets. And so the whole province is promoting better eating habits says Mrs. Murton, a spokes model for the provincial Department of Health Promotion and Protection.