Kids Across America Forced to Eat School Lunch

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Recommended: Government standards for school lunches essay

According to the USDA a typical school lunch exceeds the recommended 500 milligrams of sodium. To be exact most school lunches serve meals with more than 1000 milligrams of sodium. All across the United States students from elementary, middle, and high schools are being forced to eat what is being served instead of what they have brought from home. Even though the lunch meals provided by the school might be healthier than what the student has packed, they should not have to inhibit to these actions.

Many parents of the students at these schools were outraged to find out that their healthy, homemade lunches were being replaced by the schools gluten-filled meals. According to James Joyner of Outside The Beltway a preschooler had gotten her bagged lunch taken away because an official at her school labeled it as “unhealthy”. The young girls lunch consisted of a turkey & cheese sandwich, a banana, chips, and an apple juice pouch. Her lunch was said to not have “met the USDA guidelines”. USDA guidelines state that lunches (whether they’re brought from home or supplied by the school) must include one serving of the following: grain, milk(dairy), meat(protein), and either a fruit or vegetable. Also, if the child is missing one of the food items a childcare provider is supposed to equip them with that missing item. Instead of providing her with the missing food item, the bagged lunch official took her whole lunchbox, and made the girl eat the school lunch (which was chicken nuggets). The reason for this action is still unclear to the child’s mother. The USDA reports that less than one-third of schools in the United States stay below the recommended standard for fat content in their meals. It seems as though multiple schools across th...

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...ildren’s favor? Are they truly caring for them?

Many have come to the conclusion that several schools around the United States are not looking after their students the way that they should be. It is sad and very scary to parents when they hear that their kid(s) and/or other children haven’t eaten, were forced to eat something they didn’t want, or had a severe allergic reaction to something they were forced to eat. These conditions aren’t safe and should be looked upon very seriously. Kids look up to these workers and teachers; they see them as very powerful adult figures. Parents teach their kids to respect adults, and be obedient to them, but how can this be effective if what the adult tells them could possibly hurt them or put the child in some sort of danger? Forcing kids to eat school lunch is not a good idea, nobody wants to be responsible for a lost life.

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