Junk Food in School

Junk Food in School The article is about the school policy on junk food. In April 2014, the Department of Agriculture banned junk food sales at schools in the United States. In particular, the ban limits school cafeteria and  vending machine  from offering or selling students of foods that are high in fats, sugar, and calories or â€Å"junk food†. Junk food according to USDA is responsible for making millions of schoolchildren obese, a condition that is associated with a number of health  problems. Good examples of junk foods are soda, cheesecakes,  hotdogs, candies, potato chips, and any food that has little or no nutritional value. Study of obesity suggests that overweight and obese people are at risk of diabetes, coronary heart disease, a certain type of cancer, and tend to have a shorter life. Children with weight equal or greater than the 95th percentile are obese and likely to acquire a long-term chronic disease and psychosocial development problems. Poor food choices and consumption of junk food, a widely available, inexpensive, and effectively promoted on television and other media often cause obesity. Obesity, according to study is a disease linked to children’s poor nutrition and significant time spent on watching television. Junk food, on the other hand, is linked to weight gain and insulin resistance and therefore increased the risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. School Policy on Junk Food Evidently, there was no national policy regarding junk food in the United States before 2014 and therefore no reason for schools to create an internal policy on this matter. In fact, according to 2006 survey, only 25% of schools had a school  policy regarding junk food while a quarter of schools are developing #JunkFoodKids by allowing promotion and consumption of chocolate candy, cookies, pastries, baked goods, and soft drinks in schools. Some schools earned from vending machines that are so popular for their junk food content while others sell junk foods to the community so they can raise money. Schools with the junk food policy are commonly against vending machines and selling foods with little or no nutritional value. They raised funds from selling vegetables and fruits. The national policy restricting the sale of junk food at schools is a challenge to the majority of schools to create policies that could make a difference such as a junk-free school environment. Their role as educators should include teaching students on appropriate health choices, provide knowledge and encourage students on the benefits of nutritious food and exercise. You may be interested in: Remembering Our First Stage of Education Womens Right to Education Teachers and school staff are role models and therefore must be at the forefront of the junk food free school campus initiative. Operators of school cafeterias and vending machines should start thinking about students’ well-being rather than sales and profit. Teachers should be familiar with how junk food is marketed to kids, recognize junk food from tables, and the difference between subtle and not so subtle junk food. Similarly, school officials may consider a wellness policy that includes more innovative fundraising strategies, fairs, field trips, and athletic competitions. More importantly, they should not fall for advertising money and firmly reject the promotion of junk foods in their respective schools.

Prehistoric Life During the Silurian Period

Prehistoric Life During the Silurian Period The Silurian period only lasted 30 or so million years, but this period of geologic history witnessed at least three major innovations in prehistoric life: the appearance of the first land plants, the subsequent colonization of dry land by the first terrestrial invertebrates, and the evolution of jawed fish, a huge evolutionary adaptation over previous marine vertebrates. The Silurian was the third period of the Paleozoic Era (542-250 million years ago), preceded the Cambrian and Ordovician periods and succeeded by the Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods. Climate and Geography Experts disagree about the climate of the Silurian period; global sea and air temperatures may have exceeded 110 or 120 degrees Fahrenheit, or they might have been more moderate (only 80 or 90 degrees). During the first half of the Silurian, much of the earths continents were covered by glaciers (a holdover from the end of the preceding Ordovician period), with climatic conditions moderating by the start of the ensuing Devonian. The giant supercontinent of Gondwana (which was destined to break apart hundreds of millions of years later into Antarctica, Australia, Africa and South America) gradually drifted into the far southern hemisphere, while the smaller continent of Laurentia (the future North America) straddled the equator. Marine Life During the Silurian Period Invertebrates. The Silurian period followed the first major global extinction on earth, at the end of the Ordovician, during which 75 percent of sea-dwelling genera went extinct. Within a few million years, though, most forms of life had pretty much recovered, especially arthropods, cephalopods, and the tiny organisms known as graptolites. One major development was the spread of reef ecosystems, which thrived on the borders of the earths evolving continents and hosted a wide diversity of corals, crinoids, and other tiny, community-dwelling animals. Giant sea scorpions - such as the three-foot-long Eurypterus - were also prominent during the Silurian, and were by far the biggest arthropods of their day. Vertebrates. The big news for vertebrate animals during the Silurian period was the evolution of jawed fish like Birkenia and Andreolepis, which represented a major improvement over their predecessors of the Ordovician period (such as Astraspis and Arandaspis). The evolution of jaws, and their accompanying teeth, allowed the prehistoric fish of the Silurian period to pursue a wider variety of prey, as well as to defend themselves against predators, and was a major engine of subsequent vertebrate evolution as the prey of these fish evolved various defenses (like greater speed). The Silurian also marked the appearance of the first identified lobe-finned fish, Psarepolis, which was ancestral to the pioneering tetrapods of the ensuing Devonian period. Plant Life During the Silurian Period The Silurian is the first period for which we have conclusive evidence of terrestrial plants - tiny, fossilized spores from obscure genera like Cooksonia and Baragwanathia. These early plants were no more than a few inches high, and thus possessed only rudimentary internal water-transport mechanisms, a technique that took tens of millions of years of subsequent evolutionary history to develop. Some botanists speculate that these Silurian plants actually evolved from freshwater algae (which would have collected on the surfaces of small puddles and lakes) rather than ocean-dwelling predecessors. Terrestrial Life During the Silurian Period As a general rule, wherever you find terrestrial plants, youll also find some kinds of animals. Paleontologists have found direct fossil evidence of the first land-dwelling millipedes and scorpions of the Silurian period, and other, comparably primitive terrestrial arthropods were almost certainly present as well. However, large land-dwelling animals were a development for the future, as vertebrates gradually learned how to colonize dry land. Next: the Devonian Period