Essay on Junk Food in Schools
More than half the population in each school in the U.S. purchases lunch, and most of those lunches are increasing the obesity level tremendously in the country.
Most children don’t know how bad the food their buying really is, so the best thing to do is to show them the causes from these foods. Also many kids in elementary school can’t see the difference between the right and wrong thing to eat is; they put their trust in the school to be feeding them the healthy, nutritious food they need. So now schools need to crack down and break out the healthy foods, giving students the right meals. Without the help of our schools, more than half the population will still be increasing their weight. In general, “a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of schools with junk food is correlated with about a 1 percent higher BMI for the average student,” (Linda Gorman).
All this fatty food being sold to students is unknown by the purchaser of how horrible it really is. Most of the food in the school’s cafeterias doesn’t have the calories or fat content show when a student is buying it. If the child knew how bad the food that they were purchasing really was for them maybe that would push them away from it and have them pick a healthier choice. Also if the school just had nutritious food, the students would only be able to pick that. Also most kids aren’t taught on healthy and not beneficial foods for the body. Teaching classes or even just having a speaker come in could change some of their lives.
This would really show them what the food being sold is doing to them and how to stay in shape, or become in shape the right way. Children need to know what some products are doing to their body and they need to be come in control of it; not the school. Though junk food at school may front a health risk to some students susceptible to obesity, existing junk food policies help generate funds for programs that benefit all students (Anderson). Anderson further points out that the substitute foods allowed by official policies banning junk food and soda often allow products, like fruit juice, that contain just as many calories. The author recommends that officials considering a change in school food policies weigh the health costs borne by the fraction of students susceptible to obesity against the benefits conferred by the programs funded by in-school junk food sales. Yes, junk food does bring in a lot of money for schools and keeps the students happy, but some parents aren’t happy that their children aren’t getting a healthy diet when they are sent to school.
Most parents at home try and keep their children in good shape and sending them to school with lunch money could be jeopardizing their health. So also, junk food can be a bad idea for the schools economy because many of the parents that are informed of the food at the school will keep their child from buying it. So overall junk food is a negative component to all schools around the world, they just are adding to the obese population. Every community needs to realize what junk food is doing to our bodies and the nutrition we really need to stay healthy. Without unhealthy products in schools, much of the overweight humans in the country would decrease substantially. So many people just need to see how bad this food really is, and what they can do about it.
Say no to junk food and open your arms to nutrition.
