Junk Food Lurking In Schools: Can It Be Stopped?

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When you send your children off to school, you might worry about bullying or about their academic performance, but you generally don’t consider their lunch-time meal to be a potential problem. Now imagine, for a moment, your son or daughter is given the option between a juicy cheeseburger with greasy French fries and a healthier chicken salad. It’s a no-brainer what choice they will make. Now, stop imagining because you don’t have to. Instances like this are a reality everyday in many school cafeterias. In 2005, John Esterbrook, a writer for CBS News, reported on a government survey showing that junk foods are in competition with healthy counterparts in nine out of ten schools (par. 1). Today, although four years later, little improvement has been made to ensure students in schools are eating healthy. Why is this a problem? You may want to think that there is a simple, clear-cut line between junk food and healthy food, but as schools work to keep costs down, many corners are cut and it becomes hard to decipher what really is healthy. Confusing elements like transfat, carbohydrates, preservatives, daily percentages, and other factors only provide complications in defining healthy food. Furthermore, even if you explicitly label foods as healthy or unhealthy, hungry students are not going to consider their health as their first priority when making a quick decision of what to eat. School cafeterias, through the support of legislation, school administration, and parents, should be providing students with healthy, natural food options in contrast to the very unhealthy, processed foods that many schools currently provide. It is easy to say junk food is bad, but understanding the effects of junk food on students allows for an ... ... middle of paper ... ...9. . Kelleher, Jennifer S. "USDA may regulate all food sold in schools." Newsday.com. Newsday, 7 July 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2009. . Paton, Graeme. "Too much fast food 'harms children's test scores'" Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited, 22 May 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2009. . "Selling Obesity at School." Editorial. New York Times 26 Apr. 2009. The New York Times Company. Web. 5 Nov. 2009. . "Study: Kids will eat healthy school food." USA Today. USA TODAY, 25 Nov. 2007. Web. 5 Nov. 2009. .

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