A Healthy Constitution
Xavier Yearby
Laura Beasley
English 1101
29 October 2012
A Healthy Constitution The text from Food that I read was A Healthy Constitution by Alice Waters. The main argument that Waters is stating is that we should teach values that help children prepare for the responsibilities of becoming a citizen. In the text, she states that “farmers depend on the land, we depend on the farmers and our nation depends on all of us,” and the children are our future. Plato once said, “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.” Waters believes the way we should teach and prepare children for the future in schools is to show them the right way to eat, and by the right way, she means the healthy way.
According to Waters, we are learning that that when schools serve healthier meals, then that’d solve serious educational and health-related problems. To support her argument, there was a movie released in 2004 titled Super Size Me. This film was about a man named Morgan Spurlock, who goes on a thirty-day journey to find the real reason why Americans are so fat. In the film, Spurlock filmed about a narrow long-distance shot down the corridor of a Beckley, West Virginia, middle school. In the background of his shot, there were dozens of kids were obese. Child obesity has more than tripled in the last thirty years. The number of children obese ages 6-11 went from 7% in 1980 to 20% in 2008. In 2008, more than a third of children and adolescents were over-weight. Establishing healthy behaviors during childhood is easier and more effective than trying to change unhealthy behaviors when they’re adults. Schools play the most critical role in promoting the well-being and safety of children and helping them establish lifelong healthy eating habits. The academic standards of most of the youth are mainly based on the health of the students. As reported by Janet Currie, a student of Columbia University, having a fast food restaurant within a tenth of a
Laura Beasley
English 1101
29 October 2012
A Healthy Constitution The text from Food that I read was A Healthy Constitution by Alice Waters. The main argument that Waters is stating is that we should teach values that help children prepare for the responsibilities of becoming a citizen. In the text, she states that “farmers depend on the land, we depend on the farmers and our nation depends on all of us,” and the children are our future. Plato once said, “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.” Waters believes the way we should teach and prepare children for the future in schools is to show them the right way to eat, and by the right way, she means the healthy way.
According to Waters, we are learning that that when schools serve healthier meals, then that’d solve serious educational and health-related problems. To support her argument, there was a movie released in 2004 titled Super Size Me. This film was about a man named Morgan Spurlock, who goes on a thirty-day journey to find the real reason why Americans are so fat. In the film, Spurlock filmed about a narrow long-distance shot down the corridor of a Beckley, West Virginia, middle school. In the background of his shot, there were dozens of kids were obese. Child obesity has more than tripled in the last thirty years. The number of children obese ages 6-11 went from 7% in 1980 to 20% in 2008. In 2008, more than a third of children and adolescents were over-weight. Establishing healthy behaviors during childhood is easier and more effective than trying to change unhealthy behaviors when they’re adults. Schools play the most critical role in promoting the well-being and safety of children and helping them establish lifelong healthy eating habits. The academic standards of most of the youth are mainly based on the health of the students. As reported by Janet Currie, a student of Columbia University, having a fast food restaurant within a tenth of a