Junk Food in Schools Final Blog

One day when I was in the lunch line, I heard a student arguing with one of the lunch ladies about the higher prices of healthy foods.  She told him there was nothing she could do about it and if money was a problem then to just buy the cheaper food.  He was a pretty big kid and got mad because he said he was trying to lose weight and only being able to afford French fries or a cookie was not going to help him with losing weight.  The lunch lady responded with, “It’s not my fault that you have gotten fat, please buy something or just leave.”  By this point there was a huge line waiting to pay for food but no body seemed to mind, more people were mad at the lunch lady for treating this individual like garbage.  One student eventually came up and gave the kid five dollars to buy a salad.  Proof that good decision making will benefit everyone involved. The lunch lady got her money, the big kid got his salad, and we got to buy our lunches, everyone was happy.  For quite some time, the issue of allowing junk food to be sold in middle and high schools has been a great controversy.  I believe junk food should not be regulated in the schools because if students really want to eat it, they will bring it to school or sneak it in some how.  Also, removing junk food from school vending machines and cafeterias will not impact the percentage of adolescents who suffer from obesity.  Eliminating junk food from one meal will not help them to lose weight because honestly, they did not become obese just from eating a fatty lunch and then go home to eat healthy food.  You would need to eliminate junk food from grocery stores and restaurants if you want to stop them from eating unhealthy foods completely. 

            Schools would lose tons of money if they remove the most popular food from their selection.  According to the article, “Corporate Sponsorships in Schools,” companies give schools millions of dollars to sell their products.  These sponsorships are a large portion of income for most schools and would be cut-off from the sponsorships if they were to eliminate junk food from cafeterias.  Without that extra money, schools would definitely be in much more debt than they already are.  One school uses the thousands of dollars they make from selling food in vending machines to pay for their sports teams.  Junk food is the most sold product in the machines, meaning if they got rid of the food, they would have substantially less money to aid the teams. 

Students would continue to bring in junk food to the schools, even if it was banned from cafeterias. If a school decided it was a good plan to eliminate junk food completely from the cafeterias and vending machines, a new problem would arise, smuggling.  Students who truly enjoy eating junk food and students who enjoy making a quick dollar would quickly become friends.  A black market for junk food would be created and many more problems then just obesity would effect a school.  If the school merely put a restriction on the junk food, it would satisfy both the costumers and the administration of the school.

            Removing junk food from schools will not impact the amount of adolescents who suffer from obesity and will decrease the ability to make good decisions for ourselves.  Lunch and a snack is about the most food the average student will eat during school, so why do people think that kids are severely overweight because of junk food in schools? If I am not mistaken, there are three meals in a day and snacks in between, not just lunch.  Students wake up in the morning and could have several bowls of cereal, come home from school and munch on fatty snacks all day, eat a calorie filled dinner, and then get there snack on some more.  If people honestly think they can remove junk food from schools and obesity will disappear, they are sadly mistaken.  If they truly wanted to eliminate obesity, they would have to get rid of all junk food what-so-ever.  If students are dumb enough to eat all this food and become morbidly obese, maybe the schools should focus on educating them some more and make them realize what they are doing to themselves.  Students need to be able to make their own decisions, even if they make the wrong ones, most people learn from failure.  Schools can’t baby students more then they already do by removing junk food from schools. 

Some people would say that removing junk food from schools would greatly decrease the percentage of students suffering from obesity or from being overweight.  However, this is not true because as previously stated, there are three meals in a day and only one of them is during school.  Others might say that with the removal of junk food, students would have other options of healthy food.  Isn’t part of the education of school to learn how to make your own decisions? So how would restricting and minimizing options in the lunch line benefit the ability to make good choices?  Making junk food and healthy food equal in quantity, quality, and price would be a better decision for schools then to just remove it completely. 

Schools should not remove or be required to remove junk food from cafeterias or sporting events.  With the removal of junk food, schools would lose lots of money from corporate sponsorships; students would still sneak junk food into their lunch even if it was banned from the schools, and finally, obesity would not be impacted nearly as much as people think it will be but the decision making of the students will be negatively effected.  In order to help this issue get resolved, why don’t we all just eat healthier and make good decisions so it doesn’t have to be regulated by a school board or by the government?  It is never a good idea to just remove things from our lives, but to educate people on what is a better decision for themselves and for others is how results will begin show and obesity will surly dwindle to what it was before.

Junk Food in Schools - Yes

Junk food in schools does not contribute to childhood and teen obesity.  It is the choice of the parents and the decision of the children of what they consume.  If people are concerned about the junk food in a school, they can just take the five minutes out of their night to put together a lunch for their child’s next school day.  In high schools, it is the decision of the teenager whether or not to eat the junk food that is easily available or make their own lunch the night or morning before school.  However, schools should be required to educate students about the effects of junk food on their bodies and how it can negatively affect their health.  Even if there was a ban on junk food in schools and there was complete removal of it, students would still find a way to get it into the schools, such as selling it on a “Junk food black market” of some sort.    

Removing junk food from schools will not only push schools into more debt than they already are, but will not decrease the number of students suffering with obesity.  Corporate food companies pay millions of dollars to schools to sell their products.  If a school were to remove junk food from the schools, they would lose their million dollar sponsorships with these companies.  Schools are already in a substantial amount of debt, so the school shouldn’t be required to eliminate one of the things that majorly contribute to their income.  

Bibliography

Olsen, Larry, and Diane Allensworth. “Health Education, School.” Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Jan. 2011. <http://go.galegroup.com/‌ps/‌retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=TI-SORT&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=chsd&tabID=T003&searchId=R2&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=7&contentSet=GALE%7CCX3403200284&&docId=GALE|CX3403200284&docType=GALE&role=>.

Smith, Andrew F. “Corporate Sponsorships in Schools.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. Web. 3 Jan. 2011. <http://issues.abc-clio.com/‌Search/‌Display/ 1546462?terms=junk+food+in+schools>.

Bibliography

- - -. “A Federal Effort to Push Junk Food Out of Schools .” New York Times 7 Feb. 2010: n. pag. ProQuest Platinum. Web. 4 Jan. 2011.

Harris, Gardiner. “A Federal Effort to Push Junk Food Out of Schools .” New York Times 7 Feb. 2010: n. 
            pag. ProQuest Platinum. Web. 4 Jan. 2011.

Olsen, Larry, and Diane Allensworth. “Health Education, School.” Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Jan. 2011. http://go.galegroup.com/‌ps/‌retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=TI-SORT&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=chsd&tabID=T003&searchId=R2&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=7&contentSet=GALE%7CCX3403200284&&docId=GALE|CX3403200284&docType=GALE&role.

Neill, Kweethai C. "School-Aged Children, Diet of." Nutrition and Well-Being A to Z. Ed. Delores C.S. James. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 190-194. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Jan. 2011.

Smith, Andrew F. “Corporate Sponsorships in Schools.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. Web. 3 Jan. 2011. http://issues.abc-clio.com/‌Search/‌Display/%201546462?terms=junk+food+in+schools.

Booktalk - Payback Time by Carl Dueker

Summary

Payback Time is a book about journalism, football, and secrets.  The main character, Daniel True, is cleverly nicknamed Mitch after the Michelin Man, because of his doughy body.  He is a determined reporter for his school newspaper and strives to be the best writer for the paper, even though he writes about everyday news that nobody reads.  The summer before his senior year of high school, a new editor of the paper is elected and she gives Mitch sports instead of daily news, because he is the best writer and everyone reads sports.  He despises the thought of writing for football because his ex-best friend, Horst Diamond, is the all star quarter back for the team.  They were best friends until Horst moved a couple blocks away and Mitch wanted to keep writing instead of play football.  Mitch hates Horst because he was the one who, on the first day of high school, got everyone to start calling him Michelin Man which eventually got shortened to Mitch. 

               While watching a practice with the photographer, Kimi, they notice a player off in the back of the field that they had never seen before.  He was throwing the ball perfectly and really far.  They were so shocked that Horst Diamond might have some competition that they ran across the field to Coach McNolty and asked him if they could interview the new guy.  He told them they were only allowed to interview Horst, because he was the best player.  This made Mitch and Kimi suspicious so they looked into it and found out that the new guy was named Angel Marichal, but had no legal documents at the school.  At a nearby school, the police snuck an officer into the school for a few months to make a huge drug bust, so Kimi and Mitch thought maybe they were doing the same thing at their school.  They were even more convinced he was a cop after he spent all of his time after school in a sketchy neighborhood and always sat with the druggies during lunch.  After doing loads of research, getting beat up, and threatened, Mitch finally found out Angel’s real name and produced an article about Angel and then he found out the truth.

My Opinion

                I enjoyed reading this book because it had a lot of descriptions of football games, which is always fun to read about and experience, but it also had a lot of suspense which made the book really interesting.  Even if you don’t know anything about football, you would be able to read this book because it isn’t exclusively based on football.  The entire time reading the book I was trying to figure out for myself who Angel Marichal was and why he was at Mitch’s school.  It had some good scenes of violence that spiced up the book, like when Mitch got beat up a few times by gangsters and it was pretty sweet.   

Junk Food Article #1

Summary
In this article, it discusses Obama's intentions for removing junk food completely from school.  He claims that childhood obesity is mostly caused by the schools selling junk and fatty foods in cafeterias and vending machines.  He plans on getting rid of Snickers, Pepsi, and french fries to attempt to ween students away from unhealthy foods.  In addition to eliminating these foods, the new rule will require schools to provide many more nutritious foods.  The cost of this new rule is projected to be about $12 billion.  They believe removing all junk food from the schools will significantly drop the statistics of childhood obesity.

My Opinion
Even if the Obama Administration sets up this ban on schools and spend billions of dollars trying to get junk food out of school, it will just end up being a waste of time.  There will be some students that will always want junky food because that is what they have always eaten, so they would just find a different way to get it into school.  It isn't up to the schools to decide whether or not the students are overweight, it's up to the parents and the students themselves.  Schools use the money to help pay for things such as sports and extracurricular activities.  Without the junk filled vending machines, that money wouldn't just appear somewhere else.  This campaign to get rid of junk food is just a waste of time and money, which the government clearly doesn't have anyway.

Argument #10

10.  Claim:  Focusing gym classes on physical fitness and good health is a better solution than eliminating all junk food from schools.

Evidence:  A school district in Naperville, Illinois, that focused gym classes on teaching students physical fitness, health, and wellness instead of sports skills found that only three percent of its ninth graders were overweight. 

Warrant: Focusing gym classes on fitness and good health is a much better idea then the traditional gym class of playing basketball and dodgeball everyday.  Let's face it, not all people are born to be athletes and sports prodigies, so why base an everyday class on playing sports? We have a weight problem in America and teaching people, beginning with kids, how to stay healthy and fit, then that is just one step closer to fighting obesity and other health issues.  Schools should give students a choice of a traditional gym class, strength training class, or a gym class focused on physical fitness and good health, but all of them should teach students how to make good decisions for their health. 

Argument #5

5.  Claim:  When healthy choices are available along with junk food, students will tend to select the healthy options.

Evidence:  On a typical day at River Grove High School, the lunch featured grilled chicken breasts, rice, steamed broccoli, and a fruit cup of fresh watermelon cubes.  The cafeteria reported that 819 out of 1,120 students purchased this lunch selection, while the rest selected less healthy options.

Warrant:  There is proof from River Grove High School that more than half of the students chose the healthier options.  However, students won't purchase the healthier foods when the schools jack up the prices.  A small salad at my school costs $4.00 - $4.50 but fries and a burger costs something like $3.75.  Why would a student purchase something small for $4.50 when they could buy two things for less money, and be more full? I think healthhy foods cost the school a little extra money to buy, so they take advantage of the fact that students don't typically have too much money and put the healthier food just out of reach for the students.  I can guarantee if healthy food was the same or cheaper then junk food, students would buy the healthy choice more often than junk, just like the 819 out of 1,120 students at River Grove High School.