Freestyle

While some may not consider this a reading issue, I absolutely do. This happened a few days ago at the grocery store:
A young married couple were discussing a certain product at the grocery store. I was in the same aisle and couldn't help but overhear their discussion. They were obviously trying to watch their calorie in take and were studying the nutrition label on the side of the package. One of them said, "Oh good, look at this. There are only 200 calories in this! This would be great for me to take to work." They put the product in their cart and went on their way. I couldn't tell you what made me walk over and pick up that same product to see if they had been correct. They were correct in that 200 calories was present in each serving, which there were 4 of. The couple completely misread the nutrition label and little do they know, one of them was going to consume the whole product for 800 calories, not 200.
Now, I will admit that it was good that these people were looking at food labels and making selections accordingly..but what good is that going to do anyone if they don't know how to properly read the labels?
As a healthcare worker, obesity is an absolute epidemic that robs people of their quality of life. It was encouraging to see that people are trying to be more aware of what their are eating, but ignorance about food labels is setting people up for failure, and that is hard to watch.
I think that it should be absolutely mandatory for students to take some sort of nutrition and wellness class that teaches people how to properly read food labels (at the very least). I honestly believe that the knowledge deficit that so many people have is contributing to the obesity problem and though I know it won't eliminate the problem, if we can get people educated about simple things like healthy shopping, it will certainly help.