Malnutrition is important to me because I see children at the Head Start where I work who, if they do not eat at school, go hungry at home. Poverty is one of the worst precursors to malnutrition. When a child is malnourished they do not grow and develop as they should because they are lacking in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients which impacts their growth and development.
It is sad that this occurs in the United States. We are supposedly the richest country in the world yet people still die in our country from not having enough food to eat. I find that very atrocious. At my school we give our leftover food to some of our families because we know via home visits and calls from the social worker who is going hungry.
Malnutrition is very prevalent in Central America where "one out of every three children under fiver years is affected". (The World Bank, 2006). The countries most affected are El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
When you have such disparaging poverty, it affects the whole country. Malnourished children do not perform well in school and when they grow up the poverty cycle continues. This affects the country's "economic growth" (The World Bank, 2006).
This information will impact my future work because I never knew that malnutrition and such severe poverty existed in Central America. It is as bad as the malnutrition you see in Africa and yet you do not hear much about it. This affects my work because I have students from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. I now know why they come to the United States - they want more opportunity and a better life for their children. I have always had the utmost respect for my students and their families and the obstacles they had to overcome to come to this country but now I am also very proud of them for it as well.
References
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/0,,contentMDK:21161481~menuPK:258559~pagePK:2865106~piPK:2865128~theSitePK:258554,00.html
Hello Jen: Great post and I know how you feel when you talk about children in this country going hungry. One time I heard that one in five children go to bed hungry, that for me is terrible. I saw poverty and went through it as well, where food was limited, is not easy. In our countries there is no food banks like there is here, where there is no food there is just none. But I do have a question for you, in your program at meal time, what do you with the left overs, we are supposed to throw them away but for me is hard to throw away food, what about you?
ReplyDeleteAna
It is amazing what we see in a school setting. I also work in a Head Start program and there are children who come to school hungry. It is important that the program help meet the developmental needs of the children. As teachers, we can make sure that the children receive their two meals a day and a snack before they leave school. If a child is hungry, they are unable to fully participate in the learning environment. Therefore, it is important that all children receive breakfast before starting the school day.
ReplyDeleteHello Jennifer, thank you for sharing. I have my fair share experience working in the public school where I use start my class by giving the children snack to eat because I know some of the children is coming in late and hungry.Sophia
ReplyDeleteIt is so upsetting to know that there are these levels of hunger and poverty in the world, nutrition for growing children is too important to ignore. There isn't the same level of hunger in the UAE but I have still had to talk with parents and families about nutrition after seeing that some send their children to school with only a lunch box of sweets and chocolates.
ReplyDeleteHello Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your wonderful resource and sharing your experience with working with Head Start families.
Ana,
ReplyDeleteWe are actually supposed to THROW FOOD AWAY ALSO! I have no idea why there is a rule like that. How unthinkable!! We dont though. Families can come pick it up.