Should Schools Ban Sugary Snacks And Drinks?

It is essential for the government to continue to regulate the food in our school systems. In the article, “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food,” Michael Moss shows how the food industry is targeting children in school systems. “A potato chip that tastes great and qualifies for the Clinton-A. H. A. alliance for school...We think we have ways to do all of this on a potato chip, and imagine getting that product into schools, where children can have this product and grow up with it and feel good about eating it” (Moss 488-489). This is a prime example of how the food industry is circumventing regulations already in effect. The children of the United States of America are being zeroed in on by companies finding a loophole, instead of protecting the children, by using

One of the most controversial issues today is the question of how to address childhood obesity. Because of the large proportion of meals that children, particularly low-income children, consume in schools, cafeteria food has been targeted by dietary reformers as in need of a major overhaul. However, while many different types of new school menus have been proposed, the extent to which healthier foods can be offered remains controversial. Opponents to reform state that children will not eat healthier lunches, and that changing the food that children eat will have minimal impact, since the children will either bring food from home or eat food at home that is more 'kid friendly.'

Everyone loves sugar filled snacks, especially children. A kid’s day can be made so much better just by handing them their favorite candy bar. This is something students looked forward to during their school day. Sadly, this was made to change. Schools started banning snacks, and drinks based on their unhealthy effect they have on individuals. According to Beverly Ballaro and Ann Griswold in "Junk Food in Schools: An Overview,” this change occurred when Michelle Obama launched her project for healthy eating in 2010. Let’s Move! Was her way to fix child obesity in America. This directed schools to feed children healthier options, and twice as many vegetables or fruit. This was not a necessity for public schools across the United States. Students should not be limited to what they eat in school. As long as they are being fed their basic lunch, it should not be important what they decide to snack on.

A lot of people wonder why we are so concerned about the obesity rate in America. Being obese causes terrible diseases and sometimes can lead to death. 18% of the deaths in the United States happened from 1986 to 2006 and were caused by the symptoms that came from being obese, these occurred mostly

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.

Childhood obesity is a serious health issue currently affecting America’s population. School lunches have gained a spotlight in the search for prevention of child obesity because the majority of America’s youth eat two school meals a day during most of the year. Although the nutritional standards of school meals have been changed over the years, there is still room for improvement. With additions such as a la cart and vending machines, school meals quickly fall from the federal nutrition standards. As children grow they spend an average of 7 hours a day at school over half of the year. With almost 95% of America’s children attending school, it is one of the most stable and influential aspects of their life. With so much of a child’s time spent

Research shows that school lunches are highly concentrated in salt, sugar and unsaturated fat. Elementary, middle and high schools are over populated with vending machines, school stores and snack bars. It is not uncommon for a student to grab more than 2 or 3 snacks at once from the lunch line without

Obesity is killing Americans. Gail Marchessault has a doctorate in the Department of Community Health Sciences and is a health writer and qualitative research consultant. In Marchessault’s article, “Is Latest Death Figure New Information? Obesity deaths may relate more to diet and activity,” she says, “The estimated number of annual deaths attributable to obesity among US adults is approximately 280,000, based on hazard ratios from all subjects and 325,000 based on hazard ratios from only non-smokers and never-smokers,” (Marchessault). This quote shows that obesity kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. How many more Americans will die before the issue of obesity is resolved?

Junk food is becoming a problem in many countries in the world, specifically one of them being the United States, in which the health of children doesn’t exactly seem like top priority. While it is true that banning junk food in schools limits the children’s choices in what they buy, this decision can remove a substantial factor to childhood obesity, provide a healthier lifestyle, and reduces the spending of the student. If these snacks are removed from schools and/or banned, it would decrease school spending, lessen the calories the children would intake, and make it easier for children to lead robust lives without snacks. Not only could there be a more efficient way to make money through the use of healthier, alternative options, but

There are 7 billion individuals on earth right as we speak. Only 70 million of those individuals are either in very good or excellent health. Also there are many people who are not in good or excellent health. In the year 2000, the total cost of obesity in the United States was over $117 billion dollars. It is ever more today. This year, more than 300,000 Americans will die from the illnesses relates to or being overweight or obesity.

Many schools nowadays turn off their vending machines during the school day to prevent students from eating fattening foods. In California and Hawaii, state legislators are very close to passing a law that would ban any drinks excluding milk, water or juice from being sold in elementary schools, and reduce the hours older students can use the vending machines. Michelle Obama and the Obama Administration have asked Congress to improve children's nutrition by getting rid of school vending machines that provide students with sugary snacks and drinks. The problem with this is school’s are making an extravagant amount of money off feeding their students with artificial flavoring and

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.

School lunches, the fight to provide healthy food for kids at school, is a battle that has been going on for years with little progress. Here at SVMS, precautions have been made to help kids make healthy choices, sugary sodas aren’t sold, candy isn’t available for kids to purchase, and there is a health program that teaches kids about nutrition, but kids can still be found with lunches made completely up of chips and other unnatural food products. I think there is a different approach to helping kids get the proper nutrition, by focusing not so much on the calories and percent of sugar in each food item, but the context of where the food came from, and how the kids attain it.

Many kids around the world often play outside with each other; whether that be at a playground or in a back yard. Though, in America, the majority of young people own some type of electronic. Instead of burning calories playing outside, kids decide waste their energy playing games on their devices. According to the USA Today, “One of every three children in the United States is overweight or obese”(USA Today). With the population constantly growing, and the kids getting lazier and lazier, the numbers of obese children is only going to increase. The government can help America by changing kid’s diets. The only way the government can manage what kids consume is through school. Changing school’s lunch menus will be a great start, since many schools in the United States do not provide nutritious meals, In fact, the University of Washington asked a handful of middle schools and high schools to participate in a study. The study compared the meal standards before and after menu changes. The professors then calculated the meal standards using the meals’ adequacy ratio (MAR) and concluded, “The nutritional quality increased by nearly 30%, from a MAR of 58.7 before the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act to 75.6 after implementation”(Chen). The scientists achieved this drastic increase to the meals’ adequacy ratio just by providing a healthy variety of foods and reducing portion sizes.

To children, juicy burgers and salty French fries are much more appetizing than dry chicken sandwiches and baked sweet potato fries. However, due to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the diets of children are being filled with the latter as a way to implement a healthier diet into their lives. Many students in public schools across the United States are unhappy with the many changes such as this. Is implementing a healthier school lunch program a lost cause? We need to find a better way to improve students’ diets, rather than forcing this unbeneficial program on them.