At a time when South Carolina is ranked the second highest state for childhood obesity, and the South Carolina high school graduation rate is almost four percent below the national average, it is time to take a step back and look at the basics. Good nutrition is essential during the early childhood stages in order for children to properly develop mentally and physically. Poor nutrition during childhood can have a detrimental effects on brain development, impairing a child's learning abilities, problem solving tactics, as well as memorization. It can also be detrimental to a child's physical development, for example vision, motor skills, language as well as social skills (Nutrition can Greatly) are affected. In order for children in South Carolina to have an equal opportunity at becoming successful not only academically but in all aspects of their lives, they must be provided with access to healthy, nutritious, well-balanced meals, starting with elementary school when the development and growth rate is at a peak. 

I have always been fascinated with food and nutrition for many reasons. Starting first when I began to run track in middle school and later on in high school, and expanding when I grew interested in cooking. Running track in high school taught me how important it is to provide my body with nutrient filled, well-balanced meals, so that I could perform my best and feel my best at practice and at meets. During track season, I cut out junk food and fast food, as I found out it was detrimental to my athletic abilities. My heightened interest in eating healthy and knowing all the ingredients in the foods I was consuming, contributed to my obsession with cooking. In order to gain the maximum health benefits from cooking and eating, it is important to get fresh ingredients from local farms that refrain form using pesticides, antibiotics, and genetically modified organisms. 

I chose to focus specifically on nutrition and how it affects childhood development, because I believe it is essential to the success of our future generations. In high school I was a member of a club called Bright Knights, which tutored elementary school children in a poverty stricken neighborhood every week for an hour and a half. Seeing the impact I had on the child I was paired with was eye opening and inspiring. I learned from this experience that it is the responsibility of the community to ensure that every child is provided with an equal opportunity to succeed, whether that be with access tutoring or healthy, well-balanced meals. 

Opinion: To Combat Malnutrition, Don't Just Produce More Food- Produce Better Food, an article written by Jose Graziano da Silva and published on the National Geographic website, discusses the issue of malnutrition and how he believes we can fix it. Silva states that in order to overcome hunger we cannot just increase the quantity of it, we need to increase the quality as well. He states that the health of two billion malnourished people is affecting their everyday lives, and holding them back from reaching their full potential. Silva is the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and he served as special minister of food security in Brazil (Silva).  

Bill Gates expands upon the solution of enriching the quality of food produced, in his essay titled Why Does Hunger Still Exist in Africa, which is published on his blog. Gates states that the best investment for a child's future is getting them the right nutrition for the first 1,000 days of their lives, so that they can develop physically and mentally. Like Silva in the above article, Gates believe that the answer lies in improving the quality of food produced. He says that when children cannot get the nutrients they need because of a lack of access to meat, fruit, and vegetables, staple foods with increased nutrients could help them reach the daily necessary amount of vitamins and minerals. Gates is the founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, who focuses resources on eradicating world hunger in woman and children. 

A Fresh Look at What School Menus Can Be, written by Dan Frosch and published in the New York Times newspaper, discusses the progress being made at the annual conference put on by the School Nutrition Association. In attendance to the conference included: Michelle Obama, school chefs, as well as food service workers and nutrition experts. The article discusses how many school chefs in Denver are switching to cooking items on the menu from scratch, which in turn adds more fresh, local fruits and vegetables, and cuts out a lot of processed food. Cooking from scratch increases the number of labors needed, as well as money spent on food, but overall the benefits are worth it and great progress is being made, according to Frosch. 

The research topic question I chose is arguable because it can go both ways, schools can continue to serve meals that don't meet the nutrition needs of students, which will have long term effects on the students' mental and physical development, or schools can update their menus and cut out processed food as well as junk food and add more fruits and vegetables to their menu. The biggest opposing argument to my question is that it will increase the cost of school lunches, however it should be viewed as in investment in future generations and with the right support can be overlooked by providing statistics and supporting evidence. One potential challenge for my research topic will be finding and collecting updated data for local elementary schools in Columbia, South Carolina. 

It is the responsibility of the community, as well as the government to provide each child in America with an equal opportunity to succeed. Providing healthy, nutritious meals for elementary kids will allow them to grow and develop, and be successful. It is important that we look at the extra cost of improving school lunch menus as an investment in their future, and eventually the investment will be returned and pay itself off. 

