Do you ever walk into the cafeteria and see overweight kids drinking sugary drinks and eating unhealthy food? You may think some kids brought this type of food in from home. Some do, but others get that so called “junk food” from your own school cafeteria. Many people believe this statement and are trying to get schools to remove those types of food from the school. School’s take a major part in child obesity with the food they serve in their cafeterias.
To start off, many school’s consider healthier foods to cost more. In the book, School Lunches: Healthy Choices vs. Crowd Pleasers, Amanda Lanser shows why it is worth the cost. “When the new dietary guidelines went into effect in 2012, that money did not stretch as far as it had in the past.” Healthier food is more costly, but it is better to consume healthy foods than junk food. Many schools consider the money that they get from kids buying unhealthy items instead of the outcomes of the kids' weight. Schools could have fundraisers or events that they can get money from to pay for the costly food. Because of schools some kids aren’t learning how to have a healthy lifestyle. Also some kids who are healthy and are starting to follow the ways of unhealthy
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According to School Lunches: Healthy Choices vs. Crowd Pleasers, Amanda Lanser schools were wrong.“Schools could include students in making decisions about what fruits and vegetables are served at lunch”. If schools did a vote about what fruits and vegetables kids would want provided at school more kids would eat the foods. The reason why kids might not eat the healthiest food is because they don’t like those types of vegetables and fruits. Studies show that when kids have a healthy lunch they perform better in school than the kids who don’t. Kids should have a say in the healthy item that are provided in school. In conclusion kids should be able to choose healthier foods they are
"All Food Sales in Schools Should Offer Healthier Options." Should Junk Food Be Sold in Schools? Ed. Norah Piehl. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. At Issue. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.
Unhealthy foods are what make the money for schools and that is why they serve them for students. (Schlafy) Schools feel like they need the extra money in the budget, even though it is at the student’s expense. Data shows that nearly 60% of all middle schools in the US serve soda from vending machines. (Schlafy) Soda is very high in sugar and is not at all good for children, but it is still sold in school vending machines. The ways food in schools is now are way too high in fats and sugars. This is not good for the children and very bad in the long run. Elementary schoolchildren have an estimated $15 billion of their own money that they can use to buy whatever they want in schools, and parents have almost another $160 billion to give students for food money. (Schlafy) Big businesses see this as a big source of profit and therefore encourage children to buy their products, and want them to be offered in school because of th4e likelihood of children buying the business’s product. All in all, obesity in the US is greatly influenced by the foods offered in schools
“Our Schools need to start teaching kids how to be healthy.”- Unknown. School lunches have created a chronic problem in a school setting, and since it hasn't been fixed, 6-11 year olds have had a 17% increased chance of becoming obese (Centers for Disease control and Prevention). Most school districts don't even bother changing the food restrictions just so they can please their students. Unhealthy school lunches are a huge problem among children in the United States, it can cause obesity, stress, and many other problems.
“More than 76 percent of schools sell soft drinks and sweetened fruit drinks, but fewer than half offered bottles water. Fewer than 15 percent sell low-fat or nonfat yogurt, and fewer than one third order skim milk. Only 25 percent of schools say they've reduced fats and oils in recipes.”(Spake, 2). Choices at lunch range from greasy to unidentifiable. Most students eat school lunches five days a week. So most of the food they eat throughout the week comes from the school cafeteria. Although, the schools do tend to offer healthy choices such as salads, subs, skim milk, and unlimited fruits and vegetables. “Each week Phoenix students are served a variety of fruits and vegetables from guava to grapes and jicima to red peppers. School officials hope that by exposing children to fruits and vegetable they may develop a taste for them and request their parents to buy them.”(Bailey, 1). Real meat is becoming an issue in schools. “According to reports issued by the Physicians Committee for responsible Medicine (PCRM) the USDA dumps hundreds of millions of pounds of surplus beef, chicken, cheese, and pork on the National School lunch Program.”(Lord, 42). Chicken isn't whole white meat; some of it doesn't even taste like meat! Let’s move on to unhealthy foods. There are unlimited amounts of un...
Allowing healthier school lunches will decrease obesity in children because it will give them the proper nutrition to reduce the risk of health issues. Since obesity causes many health issues, maintaining a proper nutrition will reduce the risk of health issues. According to Star- Telegram, a daily newspaper that serves Fort Worth and areas of North Texas states, “[School lunches that have] a meal of pizza sticks, a banana, raisins and whole milk has given way to whole wheat spaghetti with meat sauce, a whole wheat roll green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, kiwi and low-fat milk … This change will help more than 2.4 million Texas students who receive a free or reduced- price school lunch to lead healthier, more active lives—in and out of the classroom”(Par. 2 and 4). School lunches are supposed to guarantee students a well balance meal, so they can have the energy to proceed with their classes throughout the day. Meanwhile, students who receive a f...
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years,” meaning that America’s children need to start eating healthier, including healthier school lunches. The National School Lunch Act is a fairly recent addition to American society. For, as the world waged war a second time, the United States began to worry about the strength and health of the country’s soldiers. However, in the beginning, selling excess agricultural goods was more important than building a healthy, well-balanced meal for students. Unfortunately, many children coming from poorer families could not afford well-balanced school lunches, so in order to compensate, the School Lunch Program changed its focus to help these students. This program, however, decreased schools’ lunch budgets, and schools had a hard time keeping up with the amount of free meals they had to provide, so they came up with some extra ways to increase revenue. However, in a small town in Massachusetts, one chef makes a difference in the health of the school lunch students eat each day, and proves that hiring a trained chef to cook real, healthy meals can increase profit. Unfortunately, that is not the case in most schools across the nation. The quality of health of the food being served in school lunches is extremely poor and was allowed to decline even more with a new set of rule changes. However, there are some improvements currently being made to increase the quality of health of the food being served to students, including teaching them all about food and its nutritional information, both good and bad. In order for students to eat healthier lunches at school, the USDA needs to implement healthier ...
When you send your children off to school, you might worry about bullying or about their academic performance, but you generally don’t consider their lunch-time meal to be a potential problem. Now imagine, for a moment, your son or daughter is given the option between a juicy cheeseburger with greasy French fries and a healthier chicken salad. It’s a no-brainer what choice they will make. Now, stop imagining because you don’t have to. Instances like this are a reality everyday in many school cafeterias. In 2005, John Esterbrook, a writer for CBS News, reported on a government survey showing that junk foods are in competition with healthy counterparts in nine out of ten schools (par. 1). Today, although four years later, little improvement has been made to ensure students in schools are eating healthy.
Schools with enormous food courts where students can buy meals and drinks from commonly known franchises, such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola, are the schools with the most health problems. Fast-food franchises are showing up everywhere, but do these businesses belong in high schools? No! Schools are here to enlighten students for life after school. If high schools promote bad eating habits by placing fast-food franchises in their cafeterias, then how can students eat right and healthy beyond high school.
How many obese children have you seen today? Obesity is one of the largest health problems Americans are currently facing. It can lead to many baleful complications, including heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, cancer, mobility issues, high blood pressure, bullying, and lack of self-esteem. According to the CDC, about 17% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 are obese, and 30% are overweight. In adults, around 70% are overweight and 30% are obese. Nevertheless, our nation’s public schools are continuously promoting virulent foods through its lunch programs and on-campus advertisements. Although I understand that unhealthy food is cheaper and tastier, we must remember that those foods are causing our nation’s children to become obese. Factors such as cheap unhealthy foods in school lunches, junk food ads in schools, and teachers eating pernicious foods in class are causing more and more children to make the easy choice, the unhealthy choice. Obesity is a growing epidemic in the U.S, one that we need to promptly eradicate.
To conclude, unhealthy foods in the cafeteria and the vending machines are the worst examples for the kids to maintain the healthy eating habits. Us Parents have to step in to make changes for our kids because in doing so would determine what kind of foods our kids are consuming. We do know for facts they are not getting the proper nutrients while in school, although they do spend in average of eight to 12 hours in schools. We, the parents, can start to make a difference, by attending the school meetings and being active in our kids functions in schools.
One reason our school should get a new lunch menu is many students do not like the food served. For example, a survey was taken and of the 31 students 100% said they disliked the food. As student Bryan Huang said, “The lunches are horrible, they need better choices and more choices.” In other words, the food is not delicious and there are not many choices. Also, when children don’t get proper nutrition they have trouble focusing in school. Most students do not buy lunch because they feel it is unappealing and do not like the food served. Many students go to other kids and ask for food. In addition, many students do not eat breakfast so they rely on lunch to fuel them for the day. But, if they do not like the food served they won’t eat so they starve for the rest of the school day, which can
Have you ever had your school’s cafeteria food? It probably didn't taste, so good did it? School lunches should be healthier, and more nutritious right? I think so, do you? All schools should change their menus to healthier more organic foods with less to no bagged sacks.
Also, according to “Healthy Day Consumer News,” schools and parents should be working together to improve the school nutrition, In other words, the teachers and parents should teach the kids about living a healthy lifestyle. Many parents and faculty members believe that schools should have improvements in the systems for healthy food. According to the article, “Why are schools selling junk foods to kids” it states American students suffering over obesity in schools. In other words, reasons for the obesities is because of vending machines and junk food on campuses. Having junk food is a win-win situation because we, the students get to eat the junk food, and the school is getting money to fund the school. According to “Prevention Institute,” kids get up to 50% of their total caloric intake at school, making the school environment a critical venue for promoting and supporting healthy eating. In other words, having the sugary snacks and unhealthy beverages around students at schools, encourages students to eat it often. Although junk food is available at most schools, one should not take advantage of it and eat it on a daily
Experts say say that what schools are feeding kids are that is causing diabetes and chronic diseases. They say that kids are getting 50% of their calorie intake at their public schools. They say almost half young elementary school students can buy junk food. They also say that 68% can buy sugary beverages in the cafeteria or out of a vending machine that's is on property.
(Dame Suzi Leather, the Daily Mail 1, page 2). Schools have a responsibility to provide healthy food choices and not just the cheapest ones (which usually happens to be the unhealthy kind). The majority of schools have contracts with unhealthy food suppliers. Most of the budget usually goes to funding sports. What the school boards do not realize is that eating healthy is a crucial part of staying fit, and if the school districts were to pick healthier food suppliers they would see that local food suppliers would gladly provide them with these choices, as it is good business for them.