Rhetorical Analysis: No Lunch Left Behind

School lunches are often unsung heroes of many modern American households. Frequently overlooked and disregarded because of their stigma, school lunches are a key ingredient that may help make the world a better place. Unknowingly, great numbers of individuals in our communities deal with food insecurities every day of their lives. It baffles me that in an advanced society many people do not have the resources to provide food for themselves or their families. Until it affected me personally, I was unaware nor passionate about the struggles of food insecurity. My passion for solving food insecurity in my local community has led me to gain both experience and leadership through understanding and advocating for those around me.

One of the most notable advocates of school reforms is British chef Jamie Oliver, whose 'food revolution' popularized on his prime time reality TV show highlighted the lack of nutritious school food in many areas of the country. Oliver's program has drawn the ire of many critics liberal as well as conservative. One critic, Chez Pazienza, a fan of Oliver, as a chef, found the project to reform school lunches to be a rather disturbing limitation on children's personal freedoms. "I get the argument that little good comes from giving kids milk that pumps them full of sugar and empty calories, but is an outright ban on it really the way to go? What about the child who just likes chocolate milk and can actually

As we begin our analysis, we reconstruct the context in which, “10 Reasons to Avoid School Lunches Like the Plague”, was written. Recently, Michelle Obama has made a rule that has forced Colorado school’s to improve the health of the school lunch programs. While all of the Douglas County schools have yet to implement the supposedly healthy lunch program, it has still caused much debate. This debate has been fueled by students, parents, and even teachers. All of which have different responses to the conflict. Some believe that healthy lunches will cause more food to be thrown away and therefore healthier, is a bad idea. Others believe that the lunches are still not healthy. All of these elements contribute to the kairotic moment of Leah Segedie’s

School lunch rooms have been evolving over the last decade. Healthier food choices and better-quality food are just two of many improvements happening inside school cafeterias. Although school lunch rooms are making various positive changes, there are still negative consequences for some students. Most students can go through the lunch line and not have to worry about the cost of the meal and whether they have enough money to buy a hot lunch. On the other hand, some students are constantly worrying about not being able to eat lunch due to the price. According to a CNN article titled “School Lunch Shaming” by Heather Long, “…an alarming number of American youngsters still can’t afford a $2.35 lunch, despite the dramatic expansion of free and reduced lunch programs” (paragraph 1), which demonstrates the struggles that these low-income families face when it comes to buying their student school lunches. Staff working in cafeterias have started to “shame” those students by taking away the student’s food and giving them a bag containing a cheese sandwich and milk to those students who are unable to afford their lunch. States such as New Mexico are taking a stand against school lunch shaming and have banned lunch shaming completely. Long also explained that, “The USDA is urging districts to stop “embarrassing” and “singling out” students who don’t have enough money for lunch” (paragraph 9), which further demonstrates the lengths people are going to solve the lunch shaming issues.

The author’s intention is to inform the reader that the healthy lunch programs are failing. The author provides plentiful information and research on the failing school lunch programs in the U.S. “In the war to get America’s children to eat healthier, things are not going well.” Kids are not eating their vegetables. This has become a big problem in America and steps need to be taken to stop unhealthy eating. Like The Agriculture Department mandating that students in the federal lunch program choose a fruit or vegetable with their meals. This solution didn’t work and actually worsened the problem. “Their consumption of fruits and vegetables actually went down 13 percent after the mandate took effect.”

Brand name fast-food items now account for almost 50% of schools sales (Brockett). As one can see, the financial benefits of the brand names in lunches can help boost a school’s declining profit. If fast-food was taken away from menus, many schools would fail to break even and have to cut their staff (Brockett). “Financially, it’s better for us if we go up to 400 meals” said Amy Hedrick, a food service supervisor in California (Lehmann). If she tries to sell off brand pizzas, her profit declines dramatically as she only sells 250 to 300 pizzas. If kids are being forced to eat healthy through their school lunch, they will leave the school over their lunch hour and go find a fast food restaurant. Even if they don’t leave, will taking away their brand name foods really solve the problem? The solution is not to frighten kids away with putting bans on school lunches. Rather, teach them about nutritional values of the healthier options and leaving them the choice, as it talks about in “The State Has No Place In The Lunch Bags Of A Nation”. If students know the benefits of eating healthy, they will start to turn away from fast

Most students will not eat all of their lunch since the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010” was put into action.

In “Parents, not bureaucrats, should decide what kids eat” Darren Bakst initiates a strong argument by describing what would happen if the government had control over what children eat, for example, “School boards cannot ignore the higher costs and operational issues created by the rigid mandates of the Health, Hunger- Free Kids Act”(Bakst 12). But on the other hand, author of “First lady’s fight for healthier food needs broad support”, William Rice combats the argument of Darren Bakst by stating, “Organizations that work most intensively to promote good nutrition, such as the Food Research and Action Center, and most closely, with students, such as the National Education Association, wholeheartedly support the meal standards and are fighting efforts to water them down”(Rice 12).This shows that these two articles are contrary of each other; however, they both use strong evidence and wording to prove their

For the past decade or so the American School Lunch programs have been scrutinized for their poor nutrition and high calorie contents. In all, a lot of people have given their input to the problem in the form of essays. Lisa Belkin, wrote her article "The School-Lunch Test" in 2006, which confronted the current school lunch programs of that year and the attempts to make them better for children (Belkin). Years later, in 2012, Michelle Obama produced the article "Food Bill We Need" which confronted the same problem Lisa Belkin went up against, except Michelle was advocating a newly proposed bill (Obama). Lastly, Von Diaz a year later in 2013, wrote "What Ever Happened to Michelle Obama's School Lunch Program?" (Diaz). All of these pieces focus

Federally-funded school meal programs, including the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP), serve an average of 31.3 million lunches and 11.1 million breakfasts per day at a cost to the country of $11.1 billion in 2011 (Food & Nutrition Services, 2012). These federally-funded meals are an excellent opportunity for regulation of nutrition as well as education regarding healthy choices. Obesity is clearly a great threat to the health of our nation, and the federal government must step in to defend its citizens against this growing threat. Children are at the mercy of their families, their social conditions, and their schools, predisposing them to obesity through poor nutritional options and a lack of education; the federal government must intervene through regulation of school meals and snacks to protect children from the abundance of unhealthy options while also educating them and reducing childhood obesity.

Do you know if your child's school lunch is healthy enough? The government thinks that it’s ok just to get them healthy foods to kids but that doesn’t solve the problem. They need to focus on what the kids need. Most kids go home disgusted, because they don’t like what their school gives them for lunch. Also, parents should have a say in what their kids eat but that’s not what congress thinks. The government thinks they know best, but do they really?

The numerousness of child obesity in the US is at an unequaled high with about 33% of all kids and teenagers now viewed as overweight or fat (Ogden et al 2008). Impressive consideration has been centered on schools trying to distinguish approach levers that will switch the weight pestilence. Specifically, the accessibility of "aggressive foods", characterized as nourishments and refreshments accessible or being able to buy in schools, outside of the school lunch and breakfast, has been a highly talked about issue. From one perspective, adversaries address the nourishing estimation of focused sustenance and think of them as the essential wellspring of "junk" in schools

For numerous Americans today, school lunch is a controversial topic that inspires heated debate and intense disagreements over whether or not nutritious food should be mandated and forced into school lunchrooms. A majority of Americans will trace the beginning of the lunch debate to the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, but long before all the controversy, the National School Lunch Act of 1964 was created for one simple purpose, to feed hungry children. (Rude) According to Emelyn Rude, a graduate of Harvard majoring in Social Studies, and a writer for Time.com, a form of school lunches existed even earlier, “ [efforts led by welfare organizations] in Philadelphia, [...] began serving up hot meals for the price of a penny in high schools as early as 1894” With all the legislation passed and community efforts, it would seem that school lunches would be serving the optimum amount of healthy nutritional foods; however, in countless cafeterias across the country that is not the case. Many people believe that schools are actively serving nutritious foods, and give examples of unhealthy school lunches from the past to support their belief. However, it is very counterproductive to compare when there was limited nutritional information to now, when schools strive to improve their meals with the information that science has obtained. Schools do not serve nutritious food for a variety of reasons; usually, the foods with maximum nutritional value cost

One reason that healthy foods should be subsidized is because school districts need to change the food selection that they put out for students, because this harms their health. Many students have no choice but to consume the foods that school districts put out. In Alice Waters and Katrina Heron’s essay, No Lunch Left Behind, they reveal that the National School Lunch Program needs to consider what foods they are giving to the students through their meals. Waters and

After observing the latest statistics on the current generation of children in America, Michelle Obama setup the Nutritional Standards in the National School Breakfast Program, which set out to provide healthier meals to children everyday through the school (“USDA Unveils Historic Improvements to Meals Served in America’s Food”). This was what seemed like just the change the country needed to turn the tide in the fight against childhood obesity. This