Everyone sitting around me has the option to purchase a healthy meal because that’s what our cafeteria mainly serves, but mostly all chose to leave school grounds and purchase something absolutely unhealthy. I believe the problem here is that these people didn’t have the healthy option growing up. I remember when I attended River Grove school as a child and all the school served was fast food. Monday’s- Ravioli with marinara sauce Tuesday’s- Taco Bell Wednesday’s- Mc Donald’s Thursday’s- Dominos Friday’s- Chicken noodle soup Along with all of this we even had a snack bar filled with ice cream, cookies, chips and many other fatty options. There were even parents selling cupcakes every Thursday to help raise money for student council and school dances.
Ever since 2005 when chefs highlighted the poor nutritional value of school dinners across the country, many parents have been understandably confused about what is best for their child. Some have even opted out of school dinners altogether and provide their child with a packed lunch or allow them to go home for lunch. Is it possible, however, that in this they are completely misguided. We all know that young children need the right balance of nutritious food to grow and develop. Some parents think that home-prepared packed lunches are healthier than school dinners because they can control the contents.
| Evidence | The government has given us the choice to eat what we want but we tend not to eat healthier but only junk food. The federal School was issued a new, healthier lunch dietary guideline. First lady Michelle Obama helps students from Washington with eating healthier in the schools. “Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor in the in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. Billions of dollars in advertising messages, food sold everywhere-in gas stations, vending machines, libraries and stores that sell clothing, books, office supplies, cosmetics and drugs-and huge portions of food at bargain prices (Par 7).” | Explanation (how it supports your argument) | If they wouldn’t sell junk food everywhere people go.
Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink is telling about why we eat more. We do not usually pay attention to what we eat when we are multitasking. When we eat, it is recommended to do nothing else, so we can focus and think what we are about to put in to our mouth. People's eating behavior is easily influenced by surrounding. For example, when we eat with our friends and we engaged in conversations, it is easy for us to not focus on what we eat; especially because our stomach cannot count on how many pieces of chicken wings we ate but we can see and count the bones.
Lunch is an important meal of the day and many children eat it at school. It helps our bodies and brains grow and develop into the way that they are supposed to by boosting our metabolism and giving us energy for the rest of the day. But it's probably one of the biggest problems in schools throughout America. We are told to eat healthy and good but we cannot always do that with the choices we have at the school. Students are being fed unhealthy lunches at school cafeterias simply because it is cheaper to produce unhealthy processed foods so alternatives and healthier food go away.
School authorities hope that by exposing more and more fruits and vegetables to children that they’re eventually have a taste for it and it would become a habit of they daily lives. Having actual real meat instead of the processed junk we are served is starting to become a real problem “According to reports issued by the Physicians Committee for responsible Medicine (PCRM) the USDA dumps hundreds of millions of pounds of surplus beef, chicken, cheese, and pork on the National School lunch Program.” Chicken isn't whole white meat, some of it doesn't even taste like meat. Let’s continue on to unhealthy foods. There is a huge list of unhealthy foods that we have. Desserts such as cookies, shaved ice, or we can call them what other people see them as for example, muffins, frozen
Where does this dislike of healthy food come from, even before we taste them? This question is something in which has a definite answer and it’s not just bad parent feed their children bad food. As we are told by our parents at a very young age to eat these healthy foods, we are also encouraged to eat the unhealthy ones in media. Television, film, and commercials plays a big part in what we choose to eat from a very young age, a preference that eventually sticks to most of us into adulthood. The colorful, fun fast-food commercials with the extra incentive of getting a toy with your happy meal is enough to make a kid go bananas yet there is nothing to make a kid go for a bag of broccoli, there is no toy, no colorful commercial.
We should care about our environment by ordering smaller amounts of food when in restaurants. Many people in the restaurants order too much food especially in buffets but when they finish their dinner, we can see there are still have some food left on the dishes. I was one of them who always wasted food when I was done with my meal. I didn’t realize that the food I tossed in the trash could impact our environment and lead to pollution concerns. In the book, Bloom said “it’s easier for today’s children to waste food because they are so removed from its origins.” The reason why we waste food easily is we don’t have the chance to plant, water, or nurse the plants by ourselves, so we don’t know how hard it is to plant and grow the food.
The Media’s Influence on Childhood Obesity Many would argue that Obesity is not anyone’s fault but their own. There’s a common saying that says, “We are what we eat”. Although accurate, we choose what we want to eat whether it be healthy or not, this is also a common misconception. Can healthy food choices be made and healthy eating habits be developed when the media advertises unhealthy foods on a regular basis. Television shows that run for an hour usually have an average of fifteen minutes of commercials, a child who is watching television at any given moment is seeing commercials that advertise things like Fast Food restaurants, Sugary cereals and unhealthy snacks.
An example would be if a child cannot eat ham and it is being served that day the people who are preparing the food would have to give the child turkey instead of the ham. When planning a menu for the students you should follow the pyramid of foods. To make sure they have at least one of each food on the pyramid. By having healthy snacks in the class room, which will help them know how nutritional they are for them. Some good snacks for them would be fruits, cheese sticks,