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Should Junk Food Be Banned at School

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Should junk food be allowed at school?

Junk food is generally defined as “a diet high in processed foods and soft drinks” (Wiles et al., 2009, p.1). By definition, junk food contains artificial food colorings and preservatives, including fast food, oily foods, snacks and high sugary beverage. Students usually eat snacks between meals. According to McPhail et al. (2011), the snacking habit among students has increased in the past twenty years. This means students are taking more junk food in a higher chance every day. It is generally recognized that junk food is bad for health, while some scholars and researches argued that healthy snacks are beneficial to adolescents.( Martine et al. , 2011) However, the effects of junk food to teenagers …show more content…

Furthermore, selling junk food at schools can save time and expenses of students. It is because the second way for student to consume junk food at school is the meal programs (Diamond, 2011). For instance, hamburgers, pizzas and fried chicken are existed in the school meal programs. Despite the fact that school meal programs should not include junk food due to the low nutritional value, there are many concerns when schools have to decide the meal programs choices, such as the funding from school and the budgetary pressure (Gordon et al., 2007a). The cost of fast food are cheaper than making healthy food lunch since most of the fast food are processed already. Thus, students can enjoy the food after reheating them. Fast food saves time and it saves many unimportant expenses like the labor force. However, school must function as a parent and do what is best for the students when a student is away from their parents. School has responsibility to monitor a child’s diet, make sure those meals do not include junk food. Besides, schools should set a good example of nutritious eating for students. Consequently, junk food should be banned from school and this would fit in well with nutrition curriculum in health classes. In addition, some might argue that reject junk food cause imbalanced nutrition. Also, Richards et al., (2009) claim that pre-school children snacking habit can be affected by using social marketing tactics, like

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