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.
