Essay On School Cafeterias

Obesity can often be the consequence of living in a household that instill unhealthy eating habits. Schools can be a positive influence on teens early in life so that obese teens can lead into their adult lives with healthier habits. With these healthier habits, they may likely have more energy to become positive influences in others lives to be healthy and be able to do more. If schools can make such an impact on students’ lives, they should try, even if they needed to sacrifice extra money or instructional time. In 2007, there was a study that only one fifth of high school students had eaten fruits and vegetables at least five times a day in a week (Wexler, 2010). While it is unreasonable to force someone to eat these foods, if they are regularly offered as part of school lunches, students may eat them if they have finished the rest of their lunch and are hungry. Schools should be encouraged to even add fruits and vegetables to vending machines for healthier options.

What is does every kid look forward to during their school day? Lunch and recess. What kids eat at lunch reflects on the rest of their day. That includes energy levels, academic performance, and how much they engage. Meaning a poor lunch that is high in fats and lacking nutrition results in a sluggish child and some claim is a factor of the childhood obesity epidemic. School lunches should be reevaluated to provide students with a nutrient balance diet to help supply children with healthy brain functions to increase productivity in school, promotes beneficial future eating habits which can prevent further obesity issues in children, and it promotes an increase of attendance. To change what the schools here in the United States serve children food we have to take a deeper look into who is in charge, analyze the current standards and policies, and compare it to what a proper diet should be for children.

In terms, Unhealthy cafeteria food is a problem for countless reasons. Eating unhealthy foods at school at an early age can lead to bad eating habits for the rest of their lives. This leads to obesity in children, and continuing to adults. Researchers have shown currently, over two thirds of states in America have obesity rates for adults over twenty percent and nearly 1 in 3 children are overweight or obese due to an increase in fat intake. The feared “freshman 15” is often discussed among students; however it is not just a weight issue that needs to be worried about (Obesity). As I mention previously, Several dangers are associated with eating fatty foods that do not have nutritional value. It leads to obesity, and the consequences for that besides psychological repercussions can be heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, knee and joint problems, various types of cancer and finally, death (Obesity). Every year in the United States three hundred thousand deaths occur that are associated with obesity (Obesity). This problem that begins with young children eating unhealthy foods in cafeterias needs to be stopped. Ardis, 2011

One in three Americans kids are obese or over weight which is a staggering and alarming rate at the same time. So looking 20 years into the future that number could double if nothing is said and done about what we are eating. The public school food in school lunches are unhealthy for many alarming reasons, but not much can be done immediately due to strict guidelines and budgets that schools must follow. A lot of it goes to kids not exercising, and more time watching TV, or playing on the computer. And now days more families have less time to make nutritious home made meals. So they tend to eat School cafeteria lunches that have minimal nutrition’s and harmful calories. To prevent your kid from being over weight mean adapting what you eat, and having to exercise at least 60 minutes a day. If the changes are made to change school lunches, it can help them from being obese, children can improve their lifestyle choices, and lastly it prevents them from getting harmful diseases.

The lunches served in Frederick County Schools, and Urbana High School in particular lack nutritional value and are unappetizing. When interviewing Casey Ballow (a student who buys lunch everyday) about whether the school lunches are nutrional she said “The majority of students walk out [of the lunch line] without the most nutritional part of their lunch”. FCPS has made snacks whole grain, which usually makes them less tasty. Packing a lunch is a hassle because it is both time consuming and expensive, not to mention you cannot bring any warm foods. When asked why Casey chooses to buy a lunch, despite getting “soggy chicken patties and burnt french fries” she said “Buying a lunch saves me time in morning”. There is not a wide enough selection of lunch foods for students.

Eating a well balanced meal is crucial for someone in their early childhood stage. During this time period, between the ages of two and six, a well-nourished child can grow up to three inches and gain up to four and a half pounds per year (Berger, 2010). Children at this age also need fewer calories per pound of body weight than infants do. Since children need less food than they did before and many do not diminish the intake of their food consumed, obesity becomes a problem. The article “Child and adolescent obesity: a part of a bigger picture” states, “The prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity has risen substantially worldwide in less than one generation” (Lobstein, 2015). Obesity is a main factor that is present and can lead to other diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. The article also states that, “The food industry has a special interest in targeting children. Not only can the companies influence children’s immediate dietary preferences, but they can also benefit from building taste preferences and brand loyalty early in life, which last into adulthood” (Lobstein, 2015). Once children are hooked on the foods they eat during their childhood, they tend to follow those habits as they grow up. Children in low-income families are vulnerable to obesity because they rely on cheap fast food.

Heart disease, stroke, and death are just some of the symptoms of eating unhealthy food. Eating behaviors develop during the first few years of children 's lives. Children learn what to eat by observing other eating behaviors. Eating healthy food during infancy and toddler years is extremely important because the child observes the eating behaviors of their care giver or parent. Some benefits of giving your child healthy food at a you g age are, nutrients, vitamins, and energy.Adults and parents play an important role in children eating healthy because they choose the food choices for their families or themselves. Schools also play an important role in eating healthy food because they use certain strategies like having a

On an institutional level, having schools provide healthy lunch options and remove high fat and high sugar foods from vending machines would be helpful. It would give the children at least one area where, if they are buying lunch from the school, their food will always be nutrient dense. Instituting mandatory nutrition courses at schools would educate the children on what they should be eating and explain why, making it more likely that they would change their eating habits since they will be able to understand why healthy eating is important. Performing a survey on the children of what their favorite sports or outdoor activities are would be a

While the schools adhere to dietary guidelines set by the government, they still use discretion on how to serve and prepare the food to children. It is at this level that a lot of improvement stands to be made. Schools offer a lot of high-energy-dense foods, which have a lot of calories in each bite. A recent study among children showed that a high-energy-dense diet is associated with a higher risk for excess body fat during childhood. Sugar drinks are the largest source of added sugar and an important contributor of calories in the diets of children in the United States. High consumption of sugar drinks has been associated

Of all of the problems that dishearten children today, the one that bothers them the most is being unhealthy. Five out of six students from the Manalapan Englishtown Middle School agree that there should be a change in the schools' cafeteria foods; they came up with a solution to help kids be healthy. Unhealthy foods should be eliminated in schools for many reasons. First of all, kids concentrate better when they are healthy. Being healthy helps children to concentrate better because if they are healthy in the inside and the outside, they will not have to worry about their health or how they look. Secondly, having only healthy foods in school help parents to take good care of their kids. For instance, imagine a mom that is a seventh

Equally important, there are lots and lots of foreign objects in food like, mold, cockroach, hair, bugs and finger nails. You can maybe have a hair in your nose and it falls into the food, or you can be cooking and a cockroach comes on the tray and into the food. When they share the food they can’t see the bug and when the kids start to eat they feel something crunchy in their mouth. That would have been nasty. Nearly, ½ (a half) of my school may like the school lunch, but I don’t. Even the new kids on the first day are shocked to see so many foreign objects in the food. Clearly, the kids and the teachers may have stomach ache and maybe it disgust the teachers so bad that they bring their own lunch.

Although it can provoke bad habits and be an unhealthy reward, it will get kids striving to do better. With junk food in schools, kids can treat themselves however they like, but with this comes responsibility and knowing when too much is just too much “If schools don’t sell junk food, kids can buy it somewhere else. Other people say that if schools ban junk food, kids won’t learn to make good choices. After all, kids don’t need to abstain from eating these foods. They just shouldn’t eat them very often.” Says Kelly Brownell, director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. When a kid gets an A on a test or does good on a project they reward themselves with a soda after school or maybe a bag of chips or candy bar during lunch. This is part of what junk food in schools is great for, but you just have to know when it's too much and that is critical to having responsibility. With junk food in schools kids can treat themselves however they like, but with this comes responsibility and knowing when too much is just too much. John Metallo, a retired principal of Albany High School and a former adjunct instructor at the University at Albany and SUNY Plattsburgh, states that, “Kids aren't getting fat because of what they eat in school, they consume most of the food they consume at home or someplace else, like restaurants for example. Based upon a 180-day school year and three meals

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.

Junk food, junk food, junk food is around all corners of schools. Chocolate, cookies, soda, potato chips, and Sour Strings may sound delectable to some people, but are they nutritious? Some people wonder if there should be a change. Encouraging exceptional nutrition in schools is essential by reasons of students will consume foods that are better for them, schools will pay less for meals, and fewer students would go hungry.

The fast-paced lifestyle of Americans today results in unhealthy frozen T.V. dinners and take-out meals. In present day society, the role of woman and men are virtually equal. With this making both the mother and father of families busy, there is little time for home cooked meals. A hardy breakfast is replaced with sugary pop-tarts, hand packed lunches is replaced with money for fast food, and frozen T.V. trays take the place of a healthy dinner. These foods may all taste good, but they are not healthy. By giving children lunch money, the children are having the choice to buy whatever foods they please. It could be easily assumed that a child would choose a candy bar, chips, and a soda over a school lunch. Again, the children are not the only ones to be blamed here. The parents need to take time to guide their children towards what food is healthy and what food is unhealthy. By taking a little more time out of the day and making healthier food choices, the rate of childhood obesity could slow down, if not stop altogether.