Healthy School Lunches

Healthy School Lunches Waking up to go to high school every day isn’t the most fun thing on earth. Sitting through a few boring classes that seem to drag on forever isn’t an exciting way to spend a day as a kid. But, there is one part of school that everyone looks forward to; lunch. After waiting through a couple periods a student can talk openly with his or her peers, and enjoy some food that the school provides. That is, until, something gets slopped onto their plate that looks like cardboard, plastic, or something some people can’t even describe.

School lunches haven’t always been this way though, and new, healthier school lunches are to blame. Healthier school lunches are not acceptable the way that they are now, because of the cost they create and the terrible taste of most of the lunches. There are some arguments though, that are for healthy school lunches, but really they aren’t that great. One of the most important reasons as to why healthy school lunches aren’t ideal is that they are costing more money for the parents that have to pay for their children to eat at school. This is a problem, mostly because the healthy school lunch programs haven’t been proven to be very effective.

According to the Nappa Valley Register, “Middle and high school students will be paying an additional 25 cents per lunch — for a total of $2. 75 — beginning in 2012-13” at their school district. This will cost parents an extra $45 if their child buys a lunch every day for a regular 180 day school year. This isn’t the biggest cost, though. The Nappa Valley Register says “Adding the required half cup of fruit to school lunches, for example, will cost the district 15 cents per serving — or about $193,600 annually” which is occurring to school districts across America that are effected by the recent changes in school lunches.

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This is a huge chunk of money that the school uses to get fruit for students. This money could be used for something else, rather than buying fruit and make the students buy them. Overall, the money spent for healthy school lunches just isn’t worth it because of healthy lunch’s ineffectiveness. Arguably the most important factor of healthy school lunches is the child’s reaction to what is put in front of them. Certain kids have different experiences with their school’s lunches, but it’s safe to assume that the ajority of children do not enjoy them one bit. At a school in LA, one child says “The healthier it gets the more disgusting it is” which is just another reason why healthy school lunches are not a good idea. Some children at the school can barely describe what “it” is. Kids want to eat what tastes good, not what tastes like garbage, no matter how good it is for them. It’s not just the taste though; it’s the serving size as well. One student says “Usually we go to the student store and I'll buy a bag of Cheetos... r like chips, sometimes a Gatorade, yeah" when asked what they will do when the school lunch doesn’t fill them up enough. This is a problem that is hard to deal with, because having bags of snacks that students can munch on sort of goes back on the whole idea of “healthy lunches” and has the student spending money on top of their bought lunch just to get filled up for the rest of the day. Giving students a healthy option is ideal, but having them eat something that tastes bad and won’t even fill them up doesn’t seem right.

There are some arguments that some people can make as to why healthy school lunches are extremely important and why they mustn’t change. Probably the most important argument for healthy school lunches is that we live in an obese nation. The Physician’s Committee for responsible medicine says that “poor nutrition plays an important part in the increasing childhood obesity rates”. There is no denying that this is true, but a school lunch is just one of 3 meals a child will eat during the day, not to mention any snacks that take place in between.

The point is that a school lunch might be healthy, but that doesn’t mean the child will automatically become healthier. With lunch being the only meal that can be controlled by the government, it is being taken advantage of. Making 1 meal healthier won’t solve much. Another argument for healthy school lunches is that it promotes academic achievement. Sara Ipatenco of Livestrong. com says that “Some of the choices in the school cafeteria, including cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets, are high in saturated fat and sodium, which can leave your child feeling tired and uncomfortable after eating.

This can lead to distraction and an inability to focus in the classroom” which is also a true statement. Even though these lunches might make children tired and uncomfortable, an argument can be made that leaving children hungry and not feeling good after eating something they don’t enjoy could have a similar effect. Being hungry in the classroom can cause a child to lose attention just as much as being tired would be. In neither option can the student properly focus in a controlled learning environment. Teaching nutrition is also a factor involved in a healthy school lunch.

But this point isn’t exactly a great one though, because children rather learn from what their parents do than what their cafeteria workers would do. Just because they eat the food that is provided once a day five days a week doesn’t mean they are learning anything about what they are eating. It can be said they learn more from what they see being made at home and what their parents provide them. There are some valid points made in the argument for healthy school lunches, but, ultimately, the children aren’t benefiting how they should be from a program such as this.

Being healthy is an important part of life, but the way that children react to their newer, healthier school lunches just prove that they don’t taste so great. It’s not only that, though, but the cost of the lunches are not worth the quality of lunch that is being bought. Almost every argument for healthy school lunches aren’t good because they only think about what the student eats at school, not what they eat anywhere else. Essentially, healthy school lunches aren’t desirable in a student’s life which makes the student unhappy.

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