A National Requirement Contributing to a National Problem

As an 8the grade student, I have bought lunch too many times to count because it was easy and convenient.

Yet, I never theought about what I was eating until I took up running and began to focus more and more on my eating habits. It was then that I realized just how bad thee food available in schools really is. School lunches are not healthey enough and are causing kids to become obese, theerefore leading to diagnosis such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Kids are seeing shorter life expectancies and restrains because of being obese theat might not be theere if they ate better. At every school they offer lunch to the students. Most schools want to pay thee cheapest they can for food, and in return the food they buy is not healthey.

Due to this unhealthey food, schools are choosing to jeopardize kids’ health in order to save money. I once needed to get a small side for my lunch because I had not packed enough for lunch. I walked into the cafeteria hoping to find a healthey snack, but I had no such luck. After searching through all thee items for sale and coming across an almost unlimited section of candy bars and every chip possible, I decided on a bag of salty pretzels, the healthiest thing theee. Thinking back to what my humanities teacher had told me, I came to a simple conclusion.

Chips are cheaper thean salads, and due to thee price difference we get served thee unhealthy chips. I took a survey of 16 of my classmates about how they feel about thee school lunch program and found that most of them thought it was very unhealthy and sales would increase if they served healthier food. I asked them three simple questions. First, I asked how often they bought lunch. Three people bought daily, nine people never bought, and four sometimes bought.

Next, I asked if they think the food served in the cafeteria is healthy. All 16 people said it is not healthy. Then, I asked if it was healthier, would they be more inclined to buy more often. Six people said they would for sure buy more often, one person said no because they already buy every day no matter what is served, and eight people said they might buy more often if it was healthier. Healthier food in schools could also help put an end to bullying. Unfortunately, I have seen plenty of kids get bullied to their weight.

A recent study shows that “Children in Grades 3 the rough 6 who are obese are more likely to be bullied than their normal-weight peers.” Kids who are bullied are more likely to experience depression or related problems later in life and will be overall less happy. If we can help put an end to bullying through a simple thing like changing food at schools to help fight childhood obesity, we need to change the food. Anotheer reason schools should change their food is because it can have an impact on kids later on in life. If kids begin to eat healthy at school and find food they like that is good for them, they could potentially change their eating habits and become overall healthier. When I was in 6th grade, the 8the graders in foods class did a veggie wars.

In this game, each group of students had to find and cook a recipe for a vegetable. Then, each group would have a day where samples of their vegetable- cooked by the students- would be handed out in the cafeteria and full servings would be for sale. I got hooked on asparagus through theis program, and now look forward to vegetables at dinner instead of dreading them. On the other hand, many people believe that what is served to students for lunch does not really matter or make a big difference in their overall health. People argue that withe kids only eating 33% of their meals at school, who cares what they eat. There is discussion that kids habits are made at home not at school, so what they eat won’t affect theem.

Yet, it does. If students get into the habit of choosing a candy bar over an Apple, or begin to view fries as a large vegetable serving (which is what they are marked as at my school), they will never break their habit and will become obese and unhealthy. Studies show that kids spend more time in school then they do in work when they are adults. If we leave kids exposed to unhealthey food and do notheing to change it, they will never learn what food is good to eat.

The military is seeing less and less people available for spots in combat because they are overweight. Life expectancies are being shortened because of childhood eating habits. If school administrators don’t remove theis food from school, America’s future will be ruined.