Reflection Post

As I reflect on this course, I have acquired much knowledge from my colleague on childhood obesity. I enjoyed interviewing everyone, and I was soaking all of that information in. I can understand more about why I want to advocate for childhood obesity.
I interviewed the Physical Education Teacher; she has been a PE teacher for over sixteen years. I was impress when she stated that her most concern was heart disease. She does a fundraiser for the American Heart Association each year. The student is educated about their heart. The do an obstacle course, and then stop to listen do their heart.
The CATCH grant was able to provide them with more funds for equipment. This allows her to do different activity with the children. Another concern that she had was that the children do not like to move. She found it was a challenge to get the children to become physically active.
I believe that one day I will be able to accomplish the dream that I have for the children. The dream is to have a activity center where children can come each day. The center will consist of a full size gym, ping pong tables, basketball court, volleyball, indoor track, exercise equipment, etc. There will be everything that a child can use to help him/her to become physically active.
In doing this I feel it will enlighten the community on the importance of children becoming physically fit. Yes, I can say that this course has helped me in so many ways and has given me more ideas that I could have even dream!

Interview # 4 Blog Post

 I interviewed the school nurse, Cara she has been a school nurse for about twenty years. The school district has three nurses. They used to rotate between the primary, intermediate, junior high and the high school. They are now station at the school that they work at full time.

One of the insights that I gain from interviewing Cara, was that she stated that she see children that are obese more now than when she started working twenty years ago. She stated that with more state education guidelines that is required; there is a reduction in Physical Education. Another interesting fact that I learned was that she see more children with high blood pressure and that are diabetics. Several years ago the majority of those health issues were seen in adults and not as much in children.

Cara spoke about the local churches from the community that gives the children food to take home on the weekends. She was concern that the majority of the food was unhealthy for the children to consume. I can understand why she would be concern being a nurse, the children need to snack on healthy snacks. The community is concern that the children have food for the weekend. They were concern that the children were not getting enough food over the weekend. I can understand that also. I have a daycare, we had some children that mom had to work on Sunday’s so we agree to watch the children if they could to church with us. The mom was excited and stated that they could go with us. She drops them off in the morning they had breakfast before we left the house. When we arrive to church after Sunday school they had a healthy snack which consists of a fruit, juice and a bagel. After we left church we went out to lunch. One Sunday I remember seeing one of the children putting a burger in his pocket. He stated that he was going to save it for later on. I told him he could eat that one and that we would buy him another one to take home for later. He was so excited and you should have seen the look on his face as he enjoyed that burger.

One of the strategy that I would used, would be to inform the local churches that are preparing the food bags for the weekend to place more healthy snacks in the bags, along with the new nutritional guidelines in the bags. Many parents may not know that the food pyramid is not being used that it is now a plate. Children may be able to see this every week and can learn from it even if their parents do not have a chance to educate them about it.

I feel that every opportunity that we get to discuss childhood obesity with the professional that we work with, we should. I was speaking with some of the staff that I work with. I shared with them in serving the children, we might want to use more family style. This will give the child an opportunity to decide what they want to try and eat. We should encourage the children to try and eat more fruits and vegetable. In doing this it may not be as much waste with the food. We need to also may the food more colorful when serving it to children.

Cara also stated that when it comes to childhood obesity she felt that it all comes together and it end with the health professionals. They should encourage, teach and reach the children in how to eat properly. The school participate in a grant funded program called CATCH, this program allow the head cook to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables for the students to eat daily.

She stated that children are getting easy stuff to eat, such as microwave dinners; parents are too busy to cook and prepare a home cook meal.

The effective that I would like to make in my community, setting would be able to promote a childhood obesity awareness week. In this week I would place an ad in the local paper, have a family fun Bar B Que. I will be cooking all healthy foods, had out flyers with information about the food plate, have pictures of what is healthy and what is not. There will be a day that I would have the parents to share their most healthy food dish in pot luck. We can have the parents to share healthy recipes and have then combined in a cookbook. There will be physical activity games for children to do and when prizes. The prizes will consist of gym shoes, T-shirts, socks, and sweats shirts. These will clothes that the children and exercise and play freely in.

Interview/Observation Blog # 3

Blog Post #3

           This has been the most interesting and informative interview and observation that I have done in this course. I really enjoyed talking with this person. The person that I interviewed was a head cook at the primary school, her name is Ms. Amy. She has held that position for two years. She worked at the middle school in the cafeteria prior to the position that she holds now. I was very surprise when I was informed that she does very little cooking. When you say head cook the first thing that comes to my mind is cooking. In reality she informed me that the only meal that she prepared is breakfast.  This meal is the most important meal to her. Her duties consist of paperwork, doing the menus, ordering food, and taking care of the after school snacks.

Ms. Amy stated that she encourage fresh fruits and vegetables for breakfast and lunch. When she first took the position and implemented fresh fruit, she had a student that had never had a cucumber. She had to explain to the student what a cucumber was. There was also another student that never had an orange. This encouraged her to eliminate fried foods, now nothing is fried, and everything is baked.

A second insight that I gain from Ms. Amy was the importance of getting the preschool teachers to incorporate healthy snacks for the preschoolers. Their snacks are served in their classrooms. She stated that she worry about the students not eating the right foods at home. There have been several times that she has observed a student giving another student food off of his/her plate. There have been times that she has seen students putting food in their pockets. She always gives them extra food if they want it. In observing the children eat lunch one can say that 75% to 80% of the students ate all of their lunch. These were the students that eat hot lunch, which is about 90% of them.

I have learned concerning the topic that I am going to write about, is that as of 2012- 2013 the schools will no longer be able to serve 1% milk. They will be required to serve fat free milk. There is no longer a pyramid, it is now a plate. Students may be able to relate to the plate better then a pyramid. When a student sees a plate they can actually see their food item from that food group and the portion size of the food on a plate. Ms. Amy stated that teaching her staff the new regulations is always a challenge. She has to constantly remind them, of the new rules and regulations.

One agency that I learned about was a community church, which advocate for the children. They have made some beautiful tote bags; food is place in these bags. The bags are brought to the school every Friday and the students get to take them home with them. I would like to make a difference in the community. In having a very large activity center built. In the center there would be a gym, basketball court, exercise equipment, ping pong table and an indoor track and etc.  This activity will be for children only, and there will not be any video games. There would be a room if the students need to be tutor with their homework assignments. In this activity center, children will be able to be physically active everyday all year round. This center would have such an impact on the children in that they would run to this place every day.

Interview/Observation Blog # 2

Interview/ Observation Blog # 2

This week I did an observation in a second grade classroom. The teacher (Mrs. Proctor) that I observed has taught birth to three for three years, preschool for over ten years and she is currently teaching second grade. She has been teaching second grade for the pass for three years. She stated that she would retire in that grade. In observing the teacher as she taught one could see that she enjoyed teaching.

            I was impressed with the way she moved the children from one area to another. They students were moved from the desk to an area rug. They did math on the area rug, and then the teacher had them to go back to their desk to complete the written assignments. The students return back to the rug for reading where the teacher read out loud to the class.

When all of the students were on the area rug they played a spelling game. The teacher would say a word and the student to her left would say the first letter of that word, the next student will say the next letter and so on. When the word was completely spelled the next student would say the word and the next student would say “sparkle” and the next student would be out. He/she would have to sit down. The teacher would start with the next spelling word. The last student left standing was the winner of the spelling game and had a chance to get a treat out of the treat bag.

            The students went back to their desk to write down the spelling the words and the teacher collected them. This spelling assignment kept the students alert, it was exciting and fun. When you have a class of second graders, they can get restless sitting at a desk all day. I felt that it is great to move the students back and forth, from the desk to the area rug.

            I had a chance after observing the class to interview the teacher. I explain to her that I was doing a research paper on “Nutritional Health”. One insight that I gain from her about the topic was that she felt that poverty played a role in a child’s nutritional diet. Mrs. Proctor stated that if a child does not get the proper meals, there is a possibility that his/her brain will not develop properly.

There is a program that the school participant in she informed me about called “CATCH” known as coordinated approach to child health. This program was created in the late 1980’s. It was design to decrease the fat, saturated fat, and sodium in children’s diet. It also promotes physical activity.

            She stated that she was a strong advocate for breakfast. It is a very important meal, she seem to notice that if a child skip breakfast. Their attention span is short; they can’t seem to stay focus very long. Therefore, she keep healthy snack in the classroom for the students. In the middle of the interview she pauses and asks the students for their attention. She asks the question, who all have breakfast this morning? If you did eat breakfast raise your hand.  What did you have? The students stated what they had.  I was surprise to see that ninety- five percent of the students had a healthy breakfast.

            In observing the overall class, there were no overweight students in her class. However there was one in her classroom last year, she stated.  They had to meet with the principle, and his parents. She stated that it posed a problem with his physical activity he was not able to keep with the classmates. He also had to work hard at his class assignments. The student kept a body odor; the teacher kept deodorant in the classroom. The student did do the best that he could do with his personal hygiene. One most keep in mind, here is a student is second grade, overweight, and not eating the proper foods this could pose other issues for the child.

            Mrs. Proctor also stated that she had a male student who would fall asleep every morning about 9:30 am. She would give him some peanut butter and crackers. He was not getting breakfast at school or at home. We can’t assume that a family that gets assist from the state for their food is eating properly and preparing healthy meals.

            A challenge that I see in doing my research is narrowing this topic down and not going overboard.

Interviewing Professionals in Early Childhood

The area of interest for the research paper that I am considering writing is on health, poverty and developmental delays. The first person that I interviewed was a School Psychologist. The insight that I gain from the interview was that health, nutrition, exercise, and poverty can have an impact on a child’s learning. If the parents do not have the income coming into the household how can they get the proper food for the children? If the children are not getting the proper meals this can causes some delays in their ability to learn.

The second person that I interviewed was an Educational Consultant. The insight that I gain from this interview was that there is a lack of knowledge when it comes to the parents. If parents are not knowledgeable about nutrition, how can they feed their children from all of the food groups if they don’t know all of them?  Therefore, are the children getting nutritional meal each day? A parent needs to be educated about nutrition.

I can see a need to encourage and train the parents/caregivers on how important it is to serve nutritional meals and snacks to their children daily. Theses interviews influence my decision on which area to write about in that if children are not eating healthy meals and snacks it can possibly affect their performance in the classroom. The school now serves breakfast to all of the students before they take the ISAT or any state test. It has been stated that the students can perform better when they have consumed a healthy breakfast.

The area of interest that I am thinking of focusing on for the research paper is health. The related three specific topics are childhood obesity, nutrition and developmental delays. The question that I have for my colleagues is: What can we do to help people that are living below poverty level with the state of the economy? How can we encourage parents/caregivers that exercise and eating healthy is very important for our children?

First Blog

Hello

This is my first attempt at this hope its up and running.