Premium Essay

How To Reduce School Lunches

Submitted By
Words 1588
Pages 7
All around the country, but specifically in Central DeWitt High School, teens are disappointed by the quality of school lunches. The problem of bland, unpleasant school lunch has been around for as long as any high schooler can remember, however, they are unaware of the long lasting dietary habits school lunches are or are not placing into their minds. Unlike the Physical Education department at Central DeWitt, which provides multiple classes such as regular PE, Personal Fitness, and Lifetime Wellness to help students create and maintain lifelong workout routines, the lunch provided is not as beneficial. While there are nutritional guidelines supporting the department, lunches students consume are still high in carbohydrates, sodium, sugar, and other ingredients. According to …show more content…
This marshmallow and fruit dessert has 45 grams of sugar and 55 grams of carbs, which increasingly adds an overage of unnecessary ingredients. Not to mention after lunch students have free will to purchase extra food items from the snack cart. These snacks, still regulated by the government, are also high in sugar and other unhealthy ingredients. Then, after lunch kids rush to PE to exercise for 90 minutes. Although the PE programs are strong in developing workout habits, they lack the ability to educate kids on lifelong eating habits when it comes to choosing and recognizing the right types of food. This lack of education about healthy options has only increased the problem. Unwelcomed school lunches have a long lasting effect on kids and originate from various places. However, the main cause of this disregard for school lunches is the lunch program is separately funded from the school. DeDe Wagner, the ________ at Central DeWitt says all the income they receive to purchase new products comes from the kids themselves, not the school. Because of this small budget and lack of school funds, the department is limited to what food they present. There

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

School Lunches Research Paper

...School Lunches Remember those school lunches that they used to provide for us throughout elementary all the way up to high school, and if they did not they were about $2.50 a meal. Some kids hated them, others liked them and others just didn’t care as long as they had something to eat in between classes. The importance of school lunches is very high. Many kids always complain about the food, but for some it’s a blessing to them because that’s often their only meal due to their parent’s income. The lunches usually contained a milk, a juice of your choice and a small meal. Breakfast meals varied from cinnamon rolls, to French toast, to burritos, to pizza bagels. Lunch consisted of burritos again, salads, chicken, burgers, macaroni and cheese, chili cheese and beans with crackers or tostadas. And again, any of those meals along with a carton of milk and a juice were only $2.50, of...

Words: 878 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Child Obesity

...Hargraves, Huxford, Kirby, Meneely, Mikel Professor Michael Begnal ENG 104 March 16, 2016 Kids These Days Childhood obesity plagues more children in America than ever before, and it continues to grow in number year by year. In order to avoid letting childhood obesity numbers continue to grow, there needs to be changes in certain aspects of children’s lifestyles. This increase over the years can be attributed to many factors including unhealthy, calorie-filled school lunches and children not receiving enough exercise. Childhood obesity poses a very real threat to the health of younger generations and can lead to dangerous, life-threatening health issues later in life. In the rise of child obesity, children are at more risk of diabetes and other heart diseases that could not only affect them in the short and long term. In response to this issue, child obesity should be combated by offering healthier choices for school lunches, and allowing a full hour for recess. All of these could be accomplished by allowing more funding from the Department of Education, and this would allow more funding to state educational funds. Decreasing child obesity would be important for children in the long run because it would decrease their chance of developing type-two diabetes and early heart diseases. Obesity is the root cause of countless diseases, conditions, and illnesses, some of which are even life-threatening. Adulthood obesity has been linked to many deadly diseases. Some examples include...

Words: 2169 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Food Papaer

...their health, especially during school lunch. Schools lunches normally consist of quick and easy options like pizza, chips, soda, etc., all foods that when eaten regularly can lead to serious health problems. Children are prone to these eating habits everywhere and have learned from school. It’s for reasons like this that obesity in children has doubled in the last 25 years. What was once known, as Adult-Onset Diabetes is now common within our youth and caused from childhood obesity. An article from USATOADAY titled “Unhealthy Risks for Kids Tip Scale” explains this, also going into detail about the debate between enforcing healthy lunches for students and keeping junk food in schools. Though fattening foods may be easily prepared, is the timing really worth the lives of our kids? Could a healthier diet at school make for a healthier lifestyle? These questions need answers. Let us begin. In order to get something accomplished, you must involve the government. An article from the Washington Post titled “Junk Food Widely Available at U.S Elementary Schools Despite Anti- Obesity Push” explains this and how federal regulation is necessary in order to enforce healthier school lunches. With childhood obesity increasing, more people are witnessing the epidemic and wanting an end to it. A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation highlights this and describes their proposal that would set standards for nutrition and food/beverages sold in schools. To begin the process of finding...

Words: 1668 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Rua2 Childhood Obesity

...appropriately. Children spend a large portion of the year in school consuming many of their daily calories from school lunches; something must be done to make the food they eat healthier. School lunches are full of fat and calories and do not offer the right type of fruits and vegetables, no appropriate proteins and dairy items. The government has partnered with farmers to provide the food to the schools but in doing so has not offered our children the healthiest options. In addition schools do not have the budget to purchase healthier options on their own and will often subsidize the food program by selling name brand fast food in the cafeteria for a marked up price. Changing children’s eating habits in schools will be very difficult because you can’t force children to eat. It is uncertain if changing school lunches would decrease obesity or not. Though children are in school for a large portion of the day they still have time at home and if life changes are not made changing how they eat in one area may not do much of anything. Another assumption I have made is that by increasing recess time rather than decreasing it children would not be as obese. The same goes for making physical education mandatory in elementary schools and requiring physical education be taken in each semester of high school. Simply changing the lunch menu and offering more lunch time would not necessarily decrease the obesity rate among school age children. Without any type of education to go along with...

Words: 2507 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Should Government Regulate School Lunches

...regulate the content of school lunches? Well, some students think the government should, other students not so much. Many people dislike the thought of having a healthy school lunch, while others think having a healthy lunch will reduce obesity in America. Here’s what America had to say about this! Some people think the government should regulate school lunch, because it will be healthy and it will reduce obesity. Regulating school lunch was first challenged by Michelle Obama. .The first lady wanted to improve the nutritional content of food. Some citizens love the idea. Some people think if they regulate school lunch it will get rid of they fatty foods “The big difference is that the calories are from healthier foods....

Words: 749 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Choose You

...The school breakfast and lunch programs make nutritionally balanced low cost or free meals available to school children each day. School breakfast and lunches must meet the dietary guidelines for Americans and federal nutrition standards. The new school regulations have implemented adding the new fresh fruit and vegetable program to ensure that kids have healthier food choices to choose from. By adding this new program they make sure the schools can create a more conscious healthy environment and increase the consumption as well. These changes present the schools with a chance to make a difference in their diet and impact their present health and diet. This rule passed by the Food & Nutrition Service Agency requires most of the schools lunch and breakfast programs to have fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat free and low fat fluid milk in the meals served in schools. They must also reduce sodium levels and meet calorie requirements. These changes will help the dietary needs and help reduce the large scale of childhood obesity. The proposed rule in 2011 required these following changes to be implemented to the school menus: Offer vegetables daily at lunch including specific vegetable subgroups weekly (dark green, oranges and others as defined in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines) and a limited quantity of starchy vegetables throughout the week; • Offer whole grains: half of the grains would be the whole grain rich upon implementation of the rule and all grains...

Words: 713 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Public Needs to Know

...Assignment 2.1: The public needs to know- Draft Version Barbara Matos English 115 August 3, 2012 The school breakfast and lunch programs make nutritionally balanced low cost or free meals available to school children each day. School breakfast and lunches must meet the dietary guidelines for Americans and federal nutrition standards. The new school regulations have implemented adding the new fresh fruit and vegetable program to ensure that kids have healthier food choices to choose from. By adding this new program they make sure the schools can create a more conscious healthy environment and increase the consumption as well. These changes present the schools with a chance to make a difference in their diet and impact their present health and diet. This rule passed by the Food & Nutrition Service Agency requires most of the schools lunch and breakfast programs to have fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat free and low fat fluid milk in the meals served in schools. They must also reduce sodium levels and meet calorie requirements. These changes will help the dietary needs and help reduce the large scale of childhood obesity. The proposed rule in 2011 required these following changes to be implemented to the school menus: Offer vegetables daily at lunch including specific vegetable subgroups weekly (dark green, oranges and others as defined in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines) and a limited quantity of starchy vegetables throughout the week; • Offer whole grains:...

Words: 728 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Unhealthy Lunch at School

...English 100-30 Fall 2014 Unhealthy Lunch at school Lunch is an important meal of the day for kids and it is eaten at school. For kids lunch boosts the metabolism and gives energy for the rest of the day. But now unhealthy lunch is probably one of the biggest problems at every school. As kids tend to grow faster than adults it is important that they receive all the nutrition they require to grow into a healthy adult. We’re seeing sick kids get sicker and sicker this is due to deleterious food provided in lunch at schools in the ted talk Ann Cooper gives brief description of how USDA regulation allows school lunch providers to feed poison to our kids by feeding those processed foods that come frozen or in plastic bags. I concur with Ann cooper's argument and I think that we as a whole nation should take necessary steps to prevent our children from getting sick by feeding our kids healthy and fresh food which serves them nutrition and become healthy citizen down the road. In the Ted talk Anna Cooper mentions about “We now live in a country that has more prisoners than farmers.” I completely agree with the Anna’s statement that United States has more processed food than organic fresh food in local markets. We feed more frozen food than fresh, framed organic food to our children. Processed foods made with Trans fats, saturated fats, and large amounts of sodium and sugar aren't good for children. They're low in vitamins...

Words: 715 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

How Does Regulating School Lunches Affect Children

...making decisions for them—decisions they might not be too happy about. Now imagine this: their parents don’t have any control over their decision, but instead the government is telling them what they can and cannot do. This is becoming more and more of a problem recently with the regulation of children’s school lunches. The government is intervening too much, and they overstepping the boundaries in the lives of this country’s citizens. What people choose to do with their money should be their responsibility. The government needs to take a giant step back when it comes to something everyone enjoys and is a big part of everyday life: food....

Words: 1672 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

People Need to Know

...children in public schools. In this informative paper I would like to describe new changes especially for parents. Number of Americans with an overweight increases due to the absence of carbohydrate and extra sodium and cholesterol in their food. Physicians and associations blame food industry. On the other hand, food industry tried to reduce the price for fast food at the expense of the quality, fast food is accessible for everybody but it’s not a healthy choice. Americans die every day due to heart issues. Around 600000 people die of heart disease in USA every year (cdc.gov). Moreover, Heart issue continue to augment number of death every year for booth gender men and women. This disease continue to affect our society’’ as every year 715000 American have a heart attack ‘’ In the same time, number of children with obesity increased from 4 to 18.8 % between 1971 and 2010. In light of the numbers, the state school board tried to change breakfast and lunch meals, in hop to improve nutrition and health. Every fiscal year, the school national breakfast program and lunch food program reimburse for meals distributed in participating school. In 2012-2013, the NSLP agrees to pay the following reimbursement: $2.86 for free lunches, $2.46 for reduced-price lunches, $0.27 for paid lunches, $0.78 for free snacks, $0.39 for reduced-price snacks, and $0.07 for paid snacks. Also, students qualify for reduced price pay only 40 cents for each meal (The National School Lunch Program...

Words: 709 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Public Has a Right to Know

...The Public Needs To Know: School Meal Programs English 115 Prof. David Makhanlall August 10, 2014 We know that food is fuel. In order for children to be successful in the classroom, they must be well nourished. For millions of American children, a school meal is the best meal they are going to eat each day. Currently 39.7% of youth in Mississippi are overweight or obese, for these students school lunches provide valuable nutrition that they may not get at home. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) are federally funded programs that provide meals to over one hundred thousand schools across America. The recent changes to the school meal programs intend to combat the growing trend of child hood obesity with the ultimate goal of providing healthy, well-balanced and nutritious school breakfast and lunches. The majority of people understand that nutrition and health directly relates to physical and mental development. In children, nutrition affects their physical health and cognitive development. The revised school lunch and breakfast program provides more nutritional options, such as whole grain instead of refined white breads, for school age children. Prior to the revision, school food programs were under a lot of scrutiny and criticism. Fewer than 30% of schools followed the nutrition guidelines, the USDA was doing a poor job at enforcing the regulations. On top of the second-rate lunches schools served, they were also allowing...

Words: 995 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Multicultural Communication Paper

...activities. Whether it is at work or school, it is a variable that strongly reflects and influences the way that an individual acts in the world. As a current full-time college student and part-time worker, I have experienced many moments of multicultural communication and relationships throughout my twenty-one years of life. My first memorable moments were probably from elementary school. I went to elementary school in a more urban area of south Seattle. Therefore, the area was very multi-cultural. I was a part of a before and after-school child day care program where I met some of my best friends throughout the majority of my childhood. The day care was very diverse with many different cultures and ethnicities. I benefitted a lot from this because it’s where first really learned how to be a social person. I learned how to speak to people who I didn’t know, how to make new friends, and even how to expand relationships with people. As I got closer to the people who were becoming my best friends, I started to learn about their culture and moral values. For example, me being Asian-American, I was so accustomed to eating Vietnamese and other Asian foods. My mother packed me meals every day that I was so accustomed to eating at home already. Then, when I started sharing my lunches with my friends, I saw that they had completely different types of food from me. I vividly remember my African-American friend Aaron. He had some of the best lunches every single day. I think my first...

Words: 535 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

School Lunches

...program is to address the concerns of balancing the nutritional needs of children and concerns of childhood obesity. Often times the meals consumed at school represent the children’s majority of calorie and nutrient intake. The new food program will include specific amounts of calories, fat and nutrients needed for the age group of students. The program will result in a higher cost for meals and will be partially funded through reimbursement from the National School Lunch Program. This aspect of the program will be outweighed by the benefits seen in children's health, fresher foods, less missed days from illness and classroom behavior. The recent changes made by the school board to breakfast and lunch programs were based on the economic situation, need to improve the nutrition and health of the students, development costs and overall benefits of the program. The economic situation of the schools is a key factor in these changes. The question is will these changes fit in budget constraints and still generate revenue. School food service programs are much like a business. What needed to be constructed was a strategy to improve the food offered without losing revenue or increasing expense. The food program is made up of free federal lunches for low income children, reduced lunches, fully paid lunches and ala carte items. The schools do get reimbursements from the government as long as the meals meet certain guidelines. What needed to be considered is the loss in revenue by no...

Words: 1293 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Unhealthy Lunches

...Assignment 2: Unhealthy Lunches By Christine Zimmerman Business Law and Corporate Ethics | BUS212 A01 Instructor: Douglas Wert July 22, 2012 One can drive down any street in America and find all types of fast food style restaurants. We are all familiar with those top named facilities. The task of finding a child and/or adult who doesn’t know the chains of Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC, or McDonald’s would be a hard task to accomplish. The question at hand is how often do we all eat at these establishments? It has been proven over and over that the more often someone, regardless of hereditary, race, if you are an adult or child, or stature, if you make unhealthy eating choices on a daily basis, you will become obese. Parents should teach their children about healthy choices. Exercise and nutrition are an important part of one’s lifestyle. I stop and think how every new mother buys baby food such as carrots, peas, squash, grain cereal, and various fruits for their infant. However, by the time a child reaches the age of 3 or 4, most know what a McDonald’s chicken nugget and French fries are. A few years ago, we could have included school lunches in this unhealthy choice category. Government and U.S. Department of Agriculture are still working vigorously to bring school lunches to a healthier standard. On top of working with schools to incorporate healthy choices and nutrition, contracting with Drive-In Don’s fast food restaurant who sells the most delicious burgers...

Words: 1238 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Obesity In The 1900's

...World War Obesity The word obesity comes from the Latin root obesus which means eaten away or wasted away with fat. Today it is easy to see how the term came to be. Obesity is now a worldwide issue; however, it wasn’t always as common and widespread. In the mid 1900’s, America experienced a momentous technological turnover. Naturally, Americans adapted their lifestyles to continue to excel during this new era. Along with lifestyle shifts, most people’s diets changed as well. With these diet changes, obesity became a household term. It progressed to be a common diagnosis. The expanding of obesity resulted in an inevitable controversial debate on how to fix the issue. The general population was quick to point fingers, throwing the blame from...

Words: 1624 - Pages: 7