Free for All- Fixing School food in America

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The Public school system is responsible for thousands of meals a year. Many students eat two meals a day within the same walls 180 days out of the year. That’s over 350 meals for the 55 million students. The term ‘cafeteria food’ as a rightfully given negative connotation, as present day food is drastically different than what is being fed to these students. In the book Free for all: Fixing School Food in America, author Janet Poppendieck takes on this negative implication and attempts to fix it. Hunter College sociologist, Poppendieck, gives us the best reasons yet for unconditional school food reform. Throughout her book she tackles issues including: the price of the meals and the effects it has on the students, the meals themselves and the nutrients the students need, the ways in which our society should be handling the situation in regards to present and future students.
Cafeteria food has always had a stigma of being unappetizing. Although this has begun to change, unhealthy has become the new focus word. Without the recent outburst of obesity in America very few people would have worried about food. Being that students are eating more meals at school than at home during the school year parents, nutritionist and advocates are looking at the cafeteria for a source of weight gain. Poppendieck delves into the idea that school food may be a trigger for unhealthy eating habits. She also talks about the idea that family influence on students eating habits is affecting the food that will get eaten within the cafeteria. Poppendieck did a lot of specific research and surveys throughout the country to discover varying opinions and suggestions on cafeteria food its health issues and its stigmas.
Across the country school children h...

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... the cave provides us with a perfect example of why the food system cannot and will not automatically change. Thousands of years ago Plato explained why change is so difficult and so challenging and this idea has not wavered. Through our society today what we understand as truth will more than likely be what we teach our children to be truth and so on passed through generations. Even changing little things shuts our minds and causes us to believe the change to be wrong. Within our education systems, food has become a major factor for
Poppendieck is not a visionary. Nothing that she stated is mind-blowing nor is it the first time that is has been stated. What she did do within Free for All is to explore all aspects and all reasoning behind cafeteria food being the way it is. Will our society change for the better is up to our government and us as individual people.

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