January Post

Should schools ban junk food?

Did you know that schools around the nation are getting rid of sugary drinks and snacks that are high in fat? School boards around the nation think that soda, snack foods, and high fat lunch food and snacks like chips, soda, and are the cause of childhood obesity, so they are going to replace them with low fat, low carbohydrate, and low sugar merchandise instead. Schools shouldn’t ban unhealthy snacks because one of the most important parts of education is learning how to make good choices, and the cost of healthier lunches for school is higher than the price of what schools pay for less healthy foods.

Learning to make good choices is an important part of education. It is an significant part of education because most of the most important decisions in life are made in school. They are important because there the choices that will ruin your life or enhance it. In the article “Should states ban junk food” it says “An important part of education is learning to make good choices. An across-the-board junk-food ban does not teach young people how to make healthy choices; it simply removes some of their options,”. Learning to make good choices is an important part of education because it affects you throughout your life.

The cost of healthier lunches for schools is more than the cost of less healthier lunches. Less healthier lunches cost less because the unhealthy ingredients in them take longer to go bad. If schools got healthier lunches they would be losing money because healthy go bad in a few weeks because they don’t have any preservatives in them. In the article “New rules make school a junk food-free zone” it says “Sandra Ford, president of the School Nutrition Association and director of food and nutrition services for a school district in Bradenton, Fla., said in prepared testimony that the healthier foods have been expensive and participation has declined since the standards went into effect. She also predicted that her school district could lose $975,000 a year under the new "a la carte" guidelines because they would have to eliminate many of the foods they currently sell.” If schools got healthier lunches the food would go bad faster and it would cost the school extra money.

Although schools will have regular bake sales to try to earn back what they lose for having healthier lunches and the lunch will be healthier for the students and the teachers, but if schools don’t make their lunch healthier, than schools wouldn’t have to have kids do bake sales regularly, and the food won’t go bad as fast. In the article “ New rules make school a junk food-free zone” it says “ That includes snacks sold around the school and foods on the "a la carte" line in cafeterias, which never have been regulated before. The new rules, proposed in February and made final this week, also would allow states to regulate student bake sales.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. The rules have the potential to transform what many children eat at school.”

In conclusion, learning how to make gratifying choices is an important part of scholarship, also it will charge the school less money instead of wasting money on food that starts to decompose faster. Schools should not get rid of junk food.