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Essay on unhealthy school lunch
Unhealthy school lunches essay
Unhealthy school lunches essay
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School lunch is an obvious problem that has yet to be fixed. Mark Samuelsson once said, “We struggle with eating healthily, obesity, and access to good nutrition for everyone. But we have a great opportunity to get on the right side of this battle by beginning to think differently about the way that we eat and the way that we approach food.” A well know fact to almost all students and their parents is that there are many problems with school lunches and it needs to change. Not only is school lunch unhealthy, but it also does not taste good most of the time. Some people feel that school lunch is not that big of a deal so it should be very cheaply processed in factories and preserved, but that is not the case. In order to solve the lingering …show more content…
Parent should explain to their children that choosing a healthier, more nutritious lunch will give them enough energy to have a productive school day and after school activities. Parents can look over the school menu with their kids and can explain which foods are the best and why. Parents can also pack healthy lunches for their children, at least occasionally. Kids should be encouraged to choose meals that include fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains, accompanied by either milk, juice, or water. Something as simple as cutting food up will make children actually want to it. Cubing food such as chicken, cheese, veggies, and fruits can give them an appealing look and can make kids actually enjoy their food. Some other things to keep in mind when packing school lunch are replacing some of the unhealthy foods. Instead of high fat lunch meats, lower fat deli meats are better and white bread replaced with wheat should be considered. Instead of snacking on cookies, replacing that with maybe trail mix or yogurt is a good option. Anything with less fat and sugar, and more fiber and vegetables is good. Packing children’s school lunch is about the healthiest, most nutritious filled lunch they can receive at …show more content…
They started off by hiring professionally trained chefs, redesigning the dining area, and expanding the menu, including regional and organic foods. It focused on vegetables, whole grains, and good proteins instead of meat. The program was successful, but there was one question. Could this lunch program take place in public schools? It was answered soon after. A similar program started in a public school shortly after at Berkeley Unified School District in California. Chef Alice Waters had already brought nutrition awareness to Berkeley’s Public Schools, but momentum carried when a salad bar was added in and the schools started cooking from 95 percent scratch instead of using processed foods. “Surveys have shown that most students actually like the new health changes, or at least enough to not complain to school administrators to change school lunches. according to a study backed up by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, around 70 percent of elementary students “generally liked” the new lunches. Middle and high schools were not much different ranging from 63 percent to 70 percent “generally like” new school lunches”
Janet Poppendieck is a professor of sociology at Hunter College in New York, and additionally she is the author of several books including her most recent Free for All: Fixing School Food in America. This book centers on America’s recent interest in whether or not our school lunches are healthy. This issue has been put into the spotlight recently through shows such as Jamie Oliver’s School Food Revolution and in the news because recent changes in the Nation School Lunch Program’s dietary guidelines. Poppendieck’s book looks at the in depth reasons into why school lunches have turned into what they are today, what challenges need to be faced in order to fix school lunches, and ultimately how our the system should be fixed. She accomplishes this by interviewing her current college students about their previous school lunch experiences, working in a school cafeteria, interviewing current school employees, and looking at the history and policies of the National School Lunch Program.
I don't think our school lunch is healthy because it has fat and too much sodium. Although it is good it is fattening it is the reason for much of the obesity in the U.S. Many kids have no other option to eat the unhealthy school lunches or they will be hungry.
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 on 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.
Since social media has provided a way for people to share pictures of their food, the college diet has become something of a joke. For every post of someone’s delicious top-tier food, there’s a comment in which an anonymous student says that they’ve eaten nothing but ramen (or similar cheap, easy food) for the last 6 weeks.
Lunch is one of the most important meals of the day and is consumed mostly in school cafeterias for children and adolescence. Wholesome lunches are vital in maintaining a healthy metabolism and give children energy for the rest of the school day. Children are advised to eat healthily but do not always do so because the choices of tastier, fatty foods offered in school cafeterias. The National School Lunch Program, NSLP, which is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools set nutritious guidelines for lunches served in school cafeterias (USDA). However, school campuses still offer foods high in fat as well as selling candy, chips, and soda in their vending machines, as well as their school shops. In order
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 ...
In America itself only about two percent of kids eat a healthy diet. The topic I
The lack of health standards for lunches and other foods in schools are a leading cause of obesity in children. According to studies, children who eat school lunches consume forty more calories each day compared to those who bring their own lunches (Schanzenbach 703). Elizabeth Jackson, a medical doctor at the University of Michigan Health System, reported that children who eat school lunches are over two times more likely to eat fattier foods and more sugary drinks (“Children”). In the past decades, the government has attempted to develop effective lunch programs that limit the intake of unhealthy foods that children eat. The 1995 policy, “School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children,” required school lunches to meet one-third of the recommended number of calories, protein, and certain vitamins and minerals (Schanzenbach 686). Although this policy has been put into place, the government has not enforced it well enough. According to a recent study, only six percent of U.S. schoo...
News articles and internet blogs are saying that Americans are trying becoming more health conscious, but America ranks thirty-three in the healthies country. Bonnie Liebman, Sarah Federman, and Greg Crister are influential writer on the topic on food. They show the readers the freedom that food manufacturers have on labeling, and how it affects the consumers that fall for it. Bonnie Liebman, the author of “Claims Crazy: Which Can You Believe?” is a Director of Nutrition in CSPI. She has an M.S on nutritional sciences from Cornell University. Liebman provides links between health issues with food labeling. Her work talks about the different types of food labeling, and how the FDA fails to regulate on the structure/function claims that food
With the implementation of the “Healthy Kids Hunger-Free Act” schools are not serving as many lunches and participation is decreasing. According to the Government Accountability Office (GOA), “Nationwide, student participation declined by 1.2 million students(or 3.7 percent) from school year 2010-2011 through school year 2012-2013, after having increased steadily for many years”(sec. 1). The school lunches became more distasteful and bland; the combinations of foods did not make sense, and the portion sizes decreased significantly. In order to support the cafeteria
Have you ever tasted school cafeteria food? I don’t think you would want to. In school story books, do you have characters saying that the food tasted good at school cafeterias? Nope. Why is this? Cafeteria food is often cheap, bought in bulk, high in calories, malnutritious, and microwaved. Student polls and opinions prove this. Therefore, this leads to a suggestion: Healthier, tastier foods and a better, advanced lunch system should be implemented.
Food is the essential vitality of life and the essence of survival. It nourishes one’s physical body to enable pursuit of passion. However, in overwhelming aspects of American society, food is viewed as an enemy. It is seen as the root cause of obesity which carries heavy condemnations of ugliness and weakness. Countless people have become obsessed with food as a means of exerting strength, displaying will-power, and achieving alleged beauty. The way society views nutrition has become misconstrued and disordered, resulting in unhealthy relationships with food, and thus emotional and physical harm. The most effective way to change society’s relationship with food is to target the presentation, practices, content, and intentions of nutrition
Eating Responsibly To eat responsibly means to know what you are eating and knowing what you are putting into your body, whether it is healthy for you or not. It’s a sad fact that the typical American diet (high in meat and processed foods) is not healthy. There are a lot of different ways to stay healthy, but it can also be very difficult to follow a good diet plan all the time. I know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I have tried to eat well before all of my classes. I include the necessary protein of eggs and sausage, and include a fruit of some kind.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It usually gives your body the essential nutrients it needs. It provides you with the energy you need to face the day. This is the reason why you should not skip breakfast. Breakfast does not only boost your body’s metabolism but can also jump-start your brain. When you take breakfast, you normally give your muscles glycogen. This means that you will have more energy and you won’t feel like a slug. This can make you to become more active and this will make you burn several calories. This can also help in weight loss and so on.
Healthy and affordable food choices on the go or even just in the store is a huge and worldwide ongoing problem that of course cannot be fixed overnight. To help start and put one foot forward to improvements in the availability of healthy food options and choices in lower income neighborhoods, we as a community and a whole should do the following.