A new study has suggested that about half of all elementary school students can buy potato chips, ice cream, or similar snacks in vending machines and at snack bars during school.
Elementary school “is really a crucial period where the preferences and behavioral habits are being developed,” said Lindsey Turner, one of the study’s authors from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“If kids are early on in that environment where that junk food is around, then it potentially becomes a habit that’s harder to break,” she told Reuters Health, adding that the new finding was “disappointing.”
“The community (and) the parents have to take a lot of responsibility as well,” Dr. Y. Claire Wang, who studies childhood nutrition and obesity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, said.
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Tags: childhood nutrition, Elementary school, elementary school students, school
