Task Force: Regulating Healthy Eating

Congratulations!

You have been hired as the health commissioner in your state. Your goal is to promote healthy eating in your area through nutritional education and other methods. You must consider what kinds of policies and programs need to be implemented in order to effectively advocate for and regulate healthy eating. 

 Why Are We Doing This?

Healthy eating can and is regulated in various different ways. It is no secret that obesity is a highly prevalent issue in American society, with approximately two thirds of adults being overweight or obese in the nation. There have been past attempts at promoting healthy eating such as the minimal nutritional standards set for school breakfast and lunch programs in the United States. Here, we ask you to try and regulate healthy eating after researching current policies aimed at achieving this goal.

Steps:

1. Before you begin, research healthy eating policies in different countries and states. Try to find statistics about what has worked in the past and what needs to be reformed.
2. Then, try to lay out a plan for how you will regulate healthy eating in your state.
   1. What areas need to be regulated (i.e. schools, universities, workspaces, fast food restaurants, etc)?
   2. What kinds of policies will you adopt?
      1. Will you ban soda and candy or find a way to limit them?
      2. Will you control portion sizes? How so?
      3. What kinds of guidelines will be created for fast food restaurants?
      4. Will you require nutritional labels? Describe them.
3. Think through the possible objections about your healthy eating regulations that someone could have and how you would answer them.
   1. Are your policies too strict? Why or why not?
   2. Are your policies too flexible? Why or why not?
4. Share with the group and see if you can convince them that your newly designed plan will regulate healthy eating effectively.

Things to Keep in Mind:

•  You do not have to come up with an exhaustive list of policies. Come up with a few that you are prepared to defend.
• Make sure you do prior research to see what kinds of policies have been effective or ineffective in the past.