Healthier School Lunches

Today, America is plagued by obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and many other health maladies linked to unhealthy food. Although it is important for American youths to eat healthy, nutritional diets, it is an absolutely bad idea to alter the school menu and cut out students' favorite foods in favor of a "healthier" menu. Schools should have a positive influence on their students' health choices, but they should not be forcing them to eat to their standards. A "healthier" lunch menu would result in negative consequences for both students and their schools. Cutting out unhealthier foods from the cafeteria would not effectively curb teenagers' penchant for unhealthy eating. Teenagers eat whatever they want to eat. If their favorite foods were not available at school, they would just

Although some school foods may be unhealthy, the food produced at fast food restaurants is certainly worse for teenagers' health. At Tallwood High School, students are required to pay extra money in order to buy fries. This was done in order to discourage French fry consumption, but the idea backfired. Instead of buying a full lunch, some students use their lunch money to buy fries and nothing else. Students are also pressed to take two fruits or vegetables along with their meal, but many of these fruits and vegetables end up uneaten and trashed. The French fry ordeal along with the wasted food is counterproductive and hurts both the school and its students. Changing the school menu would also damage the school economically. Decreased sales in the cafeteria would result in decreased revenue for the school, which means there would be less money for it to spend on computers, books, and other resources vital to student academics. It would be a lose-lose situation; schools would lose money, student diets would plunge further, and the school as a whole would decrease in quality. Another issue linking "healthier" school lunches and economic problems would be the price of