Argumentative Essay: The Issue Of Junk Food In Schools

Position: No
The issue of “junk” foods in school grounds has been an issue over the past few years because of America’s rising numbers of obese people. As a student, I don’t think that the food is the problem here, but, as the Center for Consumer Freedom claims as well, it is the individual. It isn’t really a game of taking a variable out of an equation and hoping that it works, but more as a complex equation that needs tweaks on many levels. How is banning these foods going to stop child obesity if they can just buy the unhealthy food outside of school at a local 7-11? Rather than that, teaching students to have more common sense in order to develop more personal responsibility has it’s benefits in both diet and everyday practices. Point of the matter is that we don't need to change the food served, but change the people who eat it.

Now, there is a bit of a disagreement on the topic of unhealthy foods at school and whether or not they should be banned.

This has been brought up as of recent because President Barack Obama has set out to ban candy and sodas from schools for health benefits and to try to lower the obesity of the nation. However, there advocates against that protest that the problem isn’t the food, but that the student in question has poor judgment and should be taught to do better, while the defenders claim that the food is the source of child obesity and that removing it should be of the utmost importance. The only issue with that argument is that there are other more logical ways to tackle the issue. Why take the food out of the child’s hand and allow them to go to another to get it? But these defenders just don’t see

that.

Barack Obama, alongside many others, believe that taking these junk foods away from schools is the first and one of the most important steps in preventing child obesity. Yay America; Patriotism! Quite frankly that just doesn’t work, it’s sort of like taking a group of criminals and cutting off their hands. Sure they won’t be causing anyone harm with their arms, but who's to say they can’t bite or kick? To stop the criminal, you have to reform them. The same principle applies here; they keep on saying that we should just take away the candy in schools, without really touching the topic of educating children on making a better choice. Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, argues that “by setting standards for the food that is served and sold in cafeterias, we can make sure our children have the opportunity for a healthy start in life.” The fact he says words such as “we can make sure” and “setting standards” shows that we have to force children to eat healthy. But, if you have to regulate the food just so a child is healthy, then that child isn’t developing any choice in the matter. Instead of critically thinking whether to eat a cupcake or orange, he is forced to choose the latter. In a country that is based on choice and freedom, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to take away that in an early age. Rather than that, schools should just give students the facts as they stand (i.e. high sugar, disease) and allow the children to decide whether or not to follow them. This simple process shows children how to personally choose what is best for them rather than forcing them to go down one path, and that is why banning the food doesn’t work because it gives them no choice or say in an issue that affects their everyday life.

Furthermore, taking the time to educate children rather than just banning the food is a step in the right direction. Now I, personally, really don’t see how just banning the food changes anything, as you might have seen. If I can’t buy a candy bar at school, then what stops me from buying it after school at a shop? Myself. One’s self is the answer; if I can tell myself that I don’t want to eat and buy these foods, then I simply won’t do it. And that is what works, not taking it away in a certain venue, but making it so the children can see that this food is bad for you and that you should regulate your consumption of it. I emphasize “you” because it should be up to the consumer what they want or don’t want. School’s should just teach classes on health and make gym mandatory, or at the very least enjoyable, so that the student is having fun being healthy rather than seeing it as a chore. I believe it’s safe to say that if you say no to someone, they are very tempted to do the action that you are trying to stop, in this case, junk food. And this is something that J.Justin Wilson talks about, you can’t take away the object and expect everything to just work. When someone is trying to lose weight, he says, “going ‘cold turkey’ and avoiding tempting food is setting yourself up for failure.” It’s an ironic thing really. They are trying to stop children from eating these “unhealthy” foods, but in the process creates more craving for them as they are just that more scarce. We, as a nation, don’t need to blame all of this on an inanimate object, but on the person who is taking it in. Bottom line is that we shouldn’t just ban junk food and expect results, it takes time and learning to tackle an issue like this.

This “issue” of whether or not to ban food in schools seems to me as more of victimizing one object, rather than actually fixing it.