Contaminated food is a major cause of diarrhea substantially contributing to malnutrition and killing about 2.2 million people each year most of them children.
Most schools have only a microwave or deep fryer hardly the tools needed to feed our children real fresh food.
We need a grassroots movement and government policies and programs to change the food landscape and the built environment to give our children a chance to have happy healthy successful lives.
A few years ago kids from poor areas in France were asked to draw items of food. For a chicken they drew a drumstick. For a fish they drew a fish stick. Those are extremes but there is a lot that needs to be done to help children discover good food.
From the simple stringing together of lemon garlands for the goddess Durga to dividing the prasadam or blessed foods for the children first I came to associate food not only with feminity but also with purity and divinity.
Everyone prefers some foods over others but some adults take this tendency to an extreme. These people tend to prefer the kinds of bland food they may have enjoyed as children - such as plain or buttered pasta macaroni and cheese cheese pizza French fries and grilled cheese sandwiches - and to restrict their eating to just a few dishes.
Our children's health and well-being are dependent on our commitment to promoting food access and good eating habits at home at school and in the community.
It's fantastic to strive towards a nice life where you eat nice organic food and your children go to a nice school and you can afford nice clothes and nice perfume and the hypoallergenic make-up. But there's never a day goes by and I mean this from the bottom of my heart that I don't think about where I'm from.
The lack of access to proper nutrition is not only fueling obesity it is leading to food insecurity and hunger among our children.
When fast food is not a treat but a dietary staple the children surf the internet all day in dark corners of the room and are bombarded with latest gadgets. Things replace parental standards.