Tate J. Hedtke

Tate J.
Hedtke
SPED 610
Assignment #1
Standards #2
Cross Categorical Special Education/ Learning Disabilities
Middle Adolescence- Early Adulthood
Artifact Summary:
Malnutrition is a problem which plagues Americans of all ages, and can produce a living hell for
teachers inside of the classroom. Malnutrition can cause lifelong mental deficits for children, as
well as behavioral issues and serious medical conditions. This paper explores malnutrition on a
global as well as national scale, and how the issue affects an individual while in school as well as
throughout the course of his or her lifetime.
Every student, teacher, support staff, and individual of any other type has missed
breakfast at least once in their life. Perhaps the alarm is missed, or someone forgot to pick up
eggs from the grocery store. Although the effects may not be noticed immediately, the lack of a
meal early in the day can have dire effects on an individuals, most importantly a student or
childs cognitive and academic functioning throughout the day.
Now lets consider the massive percentages of students that survive life in a malnourished
state. The group of individuals whom wakeup to no breakfast every day, the group that become
so malnourished in early childhood that the effects may become irreversible. The laymen may
not think this could be occur in the United States, that this is a problem that only afflicts
developing nations. While it is a much more common occurrence in the populations of Southern
Asia, and parts of Africa, the same issues exist in the United States as well. The inability to
acquire proper nutrition, or the lack of knowledge and desire to properly nourish ones body is a
massive problem plaguing the United States educational system, and the country as a whole. By
the time students reach later adolescence, many of their negative habits have already been
ingrained themselves, and much irreversible damage has already been inflicted from early child
hood.
On an international scale, it is estimated that 36% of children under the age of 5 are
growth retarded (terminology provided by the United Nations) with the number skyrocketing
to over 50% of children by the time they reach the age of school. There are numerous
correlations between physical growth and mental performance not only when looking at
immediate mental function, but also in the long term.
According to analysis of data in the United States, low birth weight frequently results in
stunted growth of individuals, this stunted growth commonly leads to smaller individuals. Often
times parents of these children hold their students out of school for a year, due to the perceived
notion that they will not be able to keep-up with their peers, which is the exact opposite: this
delay can cause permanent mental delays in the child. Another study of individuals from the
United States and Brazil has shown that birth weights being one pound below average produces a
deficit of life time earning potential on average of 7%.
Further data has shown that children with deficiencies in iron (anemia) and iodine suffer
from IQs a full 13.5 points lower than the average score. Upwards of 1.6 billion children
worldwide suffer from this condition that is easily preventable and easily treated. These children
show sever delays in cognitive functioning, and a reduction in mental capacity in adult hood.
Much of these issues have been resolved in the United States, and other industrialized nations
through the fortification of staple foods such as cereal grains and table salt.
Much of the data discussed so far has been of an empirical nature, based on international
observation. But what is happening in our own backyards?
Many individuals in the United States are either malnourished due to lack of availability
to proper foods, or lack of knowledge, or sheer negligence. Differing from many
underdeveloped countries where malnutrition is the main issue, the United States is in the middle
of an obesity epidemic. Between 1976 and 2010 obesity rates in American 5 year olds has
skyrocketed from 5% to a staggering 12%. This obesity often correlates with lack of exercise,
which leads to lethargic individuals outside of the classroom, as well as within.
Apart from the obesity in children, it has become a recent fad for individuals to over
indulge in high caloric sweetened beverages which has increased rates of Type-2 diabetes,
hypertension, and a host of academic issues. Often times these sweetened beverages are loaded
with dangerous amounts of caffeine that affect a students attention and motivation in school.
Students either enter school with no sleep due to massive caffeine overloads in the evening, or so
hyped up in the mornings that they inevitably hit a wall in late morning, thus making
productivity difficult to impossible.
In the United States, there are massive efforts being made to provide individuals with the
proper knowledge, and resources in order to produce healthy, happy, and intellectually successful
adults. The federal government runs the highly successful organization known as the National
School Lunch Program, which allows for free or reduced lunch for individuals who may
otherwise not have access to nutritious meals. The name can be a bit deceiving however; in
some areas, such as the Green Bay Area Public School District and other impoverished areas kids
are allowed three meals a day, and snacks. In this situation, not only are children allowed the
meals, but adults as well so long as they do not leave the facilities there they are provided. In
other areas, free and reduced lunch is limited to those who earn less than $44,123 per year, per
house hold (for a family of four).
Efforts are also being made towards educating, and providing young mothers with proper
nutrition and knowledge on how to feed their families. The Women, Infants, and Children
Program (also known as WIC) provides funding for individuals who are either pregnant, or have
just had children, as well as children who may be considered undernourished up to the age of
five. This may be perhaps the most important program in the United States combating
malnutrition in an educational sense seeing as how the most important period of growth in a
persons life comes between the prenatal- 3 years of age range.
For older children, attempts are being made towards eliminating sugary beverages from
school vending machines, and providing only healthy options in school lunch lines. Also it is
becoming more frequent for schools to eliminate open campus lunches, thus disallowing children
from visiting fast food restaurants.
On a personal level, I have forbid junk food and sugary as well as caffeinated beverages
from my classroom. Students protested at first, but after having been presented with the data
have accepted the fact that these rules are being forced for their own wellbeing, rather than me
being a megalomaniac in front of the classroom. It is becoming more common as well to see
programs established in communities to promote families being active together, and practicing
proper eating habits. In the Green Bay area, I volunteered with a program started by a professor
at UWGB known as Live 54218 which emphasized eating five fruits or vegetables a day,
drinking four bottles of water, limiting screen time to two hours, getting at least one hour of
physical activity and eight hours of sleep at night. Although the problems may never be
eliminated completely; I do believe that through programs such as these, and extreme community
involvement, the issue can be severely alleviated.
Citations:
1) United States. Economic Development Agency. Department of
Commerce.Income Eligibility Guidelines. By Michael DeVillo, The Wic Income
Eligibility Guidelines On, July 1, 2014. The First Table Of This, and Notice
Contains The Income Limits By. 43rd ed. Vol. 79. Chaska: Pro- Tech
Interconnect Solutions, 2014. Print.
2) Jukes, Matthew, and Et. All. "Nutrition Education Guide." Journal of Nutrition
Education 4.1 (2002): 31. United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition.
United Nations. Web. 19 June 2014.
3) Santrock, John. Life Span Development. New York: McGraw Hill, 2013. Print.
The sources I used include a publication of the United Nations reporting on malnutrition around
the world and its effects on children, the guidelines for different social support programs in the
United States provided by the United States Department of Agriculture as well as a book on Life
Span Development by John Santrock, which I used in my undergraduate studies.

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