It’s becoming common in America that kids are obese. Fast food joints, unhealthy meals at home, and even school lunches are contributing to obesity in young children. Monday through Friday kids spend most of their time at school. being educated in just about everything besides the food they put in their bodies. You would think at school kids would be given a nutritious meal along with some knowledge on how to live a healthy lifestyle. But school lunches in America contain large amounts of sodium and fat, there were six students that helped out with an experiment, “All six samples exceeded the recommended 500 milligrams of sodium, four of them had more than 1,000 milligrams” (“Tests show school lunches high in sodium’). Schools exceed …show more content…
These lunches are required to provide no more than 30 percent of calories from fat and less than 10 percent from saturated fat” (Food Research and Action Center). Are schools ultimately meetings these standards that are set for these students? In the article “What is the Nutritional Value of an Average School Lunch?”, According to the third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study, published in 2007, schools consistently don’t meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s fat requirements. The survey for the 2004 to 2005 school year showed that most school lunches had 34 percent of calories from fat and only about 20 percent of school met the total fat guidelines (Miller). On the other hand, most schools are not meeting health inspections as well. There have been cases of students getting sick from the lunches at school. It’s very likely that it came from food being kept at the wrong temperatures. In an article called “How safe is school cafeteria food?”, inspector Troy Skow found hamburger meat that were below the serving temperature (Hansen). Bacteria can grow on food if it’s not kept at the right temperature which can lead to kids being ill. In the same article professor Berg states that, “The bacterial growth goes on constantly. And it replicates faster and it replicates exponentially. So if it’s seven minutes, it here. If 14 minutes, it’s doubled. It keeps doubling. And so the longer it sits out at a temperature…the more dangerous it gets” (Hansen). It’s a scary problem because school cooks are not as careful with serving food correctly, which can lead to sickness. Hansen also came across a school in St. Louis that had 45 students sick along with a teacher after eating their school
School cafeterias have been notoriously known for having unhealthy, unappealing food. Students at schools are being forced to eat these foods, when parents cannot provide regular lunches for their children. These lunches usually include the following: pizza, soda, cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, and others, all filled with artificial ingredients and preservatives. To address this problem, there should be a switch between the foods and drinks being served, and I have just the ideas that will be delicious and healthy. Authors Alice Waters, Katrina Heron, and Mark Bittman all agree that some initiative needs to be taken to fix this unhealthy food problem, and so do I. Together, the student body and parents will address the school board with healthier food options that are better tasting and better for the body.
School lunches should be in better condition before fed to students. As we know, schools don’t have the best lunches. There have been expired food, “fresh meat”, etc. This is very unhealthy towards kids health. If anything happens to them, the school would be responsible (McClatchy Tribune News Service) . Even though, school lunches are “told” to be healthy they should increase the foods’ healthiness/ freshness.
About 220 billion lunches have been served since President Truman’s signing of the National School Lunch Act in 1946. However, according to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine study, about 36% of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight and 20% are obese. The rate of obesity has risen since the 1940’s, but school lunch has made revisions to create meals to be healthier and more nutritionally dense for the child. Research has shown overweight people are only becoming more overweight and normal weight people are staying the same or developing healthier lifestyle
68 percent of students say they buy food from the cafeteria every day. Proper nutrition is tied to better academic performance. This means that kids will not do their best in school if they are fed unhealthy lunches (Black). The unhealthy lunches kids are given at school are the main contribution to childhood obesity. According to scientists, children who eat too much fat, sugar, sodium or processed food and too few vitamins and minerals are likely to develop a higher risk over time for several chronic health problems (Angela). These health problems include heart disease, and diabetes. At this time, more than ever, 55 percent of Americans are obese and 20 percent of Americans are overweight (Three Facts About School Lunches). Many schools offer healthy choices, but they did not decrease the calories in them, and they typically still offer unhealthy snack items (Three Facts About School Lunches). In a school cafeteria with both healthy and unhealthy choices offered to kids, most kids are not willing to choose the healthier choices over the unhealthy ones. So where an apple is avoided and a bag of potato chips is selected as a child’s first choice for a snack
How are students supposed to be content and satisfied with school lunches? (Rhetorical Question) Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act is one of the main causes why students are not happy with lunches. This act was supposed to make kids healthier while keeping them full but instead it did the exact opposite. In protest to school lunches, and Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act students, administrators, and school officials need to get involved to help change school lunches. School administration needs to start paying attention and change school lunches because the lines are too long and students do not have enough time to eat, school lunches are too expensive and the kids can barely afford their lunch, and the lunches are
Calories, obesity, epidemic―these words flash through daily conversion like wildfire. The American public today is severely concerned with the nation’s growing health problem, as they should be. Recently, the nation’s school lunches have had major renovations due to the alarming increase in childhood obesity. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has set out to fix the problems concerning nutrition in school lunches. Because the National School Lunch Program is required to follow the most current version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), school lunches are undergoing massive reform at the cost of students.
Did you know that school lunches have a great way for kids to eat healthy and get the nutrition, protein and vitamins that kids need to be healthy and proactive and use the energy that kids have built up inside their bodies to accomplish their goals that they have set for themselves?School lunches are a great way for kids to eat their vegetables and enjoy foods that are healthy but delicious at the same time.this is important because students/kids should make sure that their body have enough fat and protein to keep them both insulated and healthy.
With obesity, especially among children, increasing in America, the topic of healthier school lunches is a big controversy. Schools all across the country are being forced to choose between healthy lunches and the students’ favorite lunches. Changing school menus is a bad idea. For some students, this could be the only meal he or she receives each day. This may also cause students to bring unhealthier food or skip lunch all together and substitute it with fast food.
The school lunches at our school are not good and it needs to be fixed. We need lots of changes in the lunch room because of many things. The time is a great problem for many of the kids. The space is very small and we could use more. Other problems consist of the amount of food the kids are getting, the kind of food the kids are consuming. "The 'mystery meat' — we're right back to that kind of image again,"(Katie Wilson 1) Mr. Barrett said ‘’the hamburger-based entrees that would have been made with the beef were simply replaced with other menu items. "Only about 25 to 30 percent of our entrees have ground beef,” (Samuels, Christina A) I bet I’m not the only one that thinks the food doesn’t taste very good either. Now I’m going to tell you about all these problems.
Parents should continue to support the school meal standards program that Michelle Obama, the first lady, has made a campaign for. Michelle Obama has devoted herself to this campaign and is not trying to do anything other than to help the health of students around the United States. Many schools are involved already, and it would be more effective and helpful if more parents got involved with the way their children eat and make choices at school everyday. Even though students will argue that the new food that is served for school lunches is gross, there are more factors that are more important and relevant to the purpose of this campaign.
I don’t know about you but when I imagine school lunch I imagine unhealthy, unappetizing, junk food. Let’s fix that. The impact of healthier school lunches is huge. From just general nutrition to possibly higher end of the year test scores.
Chlidren born in the year 2000, will be the first generation in the American history to die younger than their parents, and the major cause is the food we have feed them. We are one of the most unhealthy country in the word; where disease linked to diet is the first cause of death, but the good news is that obesity is a controllable risk factor. So we can easly save the next generations if we just begin to find weher are the weakness and the mistakes that lead us to this awful reality. One of the fundamental piece of this issue is our school lunch program. Schools, which are supposed to give our kids the good example are serving kids cheap and unhealthy food. Clearly, American school lunch program
School lunches can be delicious and everything but people are really focused on if the school lunch is healthy. In my opinion school lunch is healthy because they provide fruits, vegetables, milk and
Last of all, an issue that the current school lunch program have is the waits in long lines. With public schools on the rise with more students and tight schedules, serving hundred of lunches each day can be stressful and sometime, challenging. "A student can easily drink down a cup of applesauce, but if you were to eat a fresh, ripe apple, chewing it will have to take up more time.", said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokeswoman for the School Nutrition Association. (Lin 1) From this quote, it proves that even if schools tries to serve healthier food, it takes time for them to eat it, which usually does not work out with such limited time provided. In France, regular eating time should not be less than 30 minutes and with recess added, it becomes
First of all eating better schools lunches that actually are nutritious better the school. In order to better the school and its students, there needs to be a healthier lunch system that provides the essential macronutrients and micronutrients. To help not only the school, but the community as