Old memes aside, IDEA provides this lovely debate topic.
Should we be banning unhealthy foods from our schools? Their setup:
Quote:
Obesity is the condition of being very overweight, to the point where your health suffers. Doctors usually say that someone with a body mass index above 30 is obese. There is an increasing problem with obesity in the developed world, and this often starts in childhood. Some people have argued that unhealthy school meals and vending machines are partly to blame and that they should be banned. In the UK the TV chef Jamie Oliver ran a high profile campaign to rid schools of unhealthy (junk) food, and the British government has started to take action as well. Local and national groups are also lobbying for change in America and a number of other countries. However, many people argue that schools are the wrong places to target and that it does not solve the problem.
Tl;dr verison?
Kids are fatter than ever.
Fat kids = increase in disease and health care costs.
Many schools make extra money through vending machines, which contain candy and soda.
They also serve cheaper meals, which tend to consist of grains and dairy, traditionally fattening foods.
So, why not ban fattening foods?
Well, read the list again. Money. It's a major issue for schools. Sit down at any town meeting, if you have them, and listen to the talk when a school budget comes up. It isn't pretty.
Also, as budgets decrease, extra-curricular activities lag, including after-school programs that promote activity.
Parents work more and spend less time with their children, for the most part, leading to a learned habit of inactivity.
What do we do? What doooo we do?
The usual. One- and two-sentence answers earn you a one-way ticket to hell, be nice, and post, dammit.
A school system has every right to ban the sale of anything they want. As an extension the government is allowed to legislate this ban to cover all public school systems if it wanted to push the ban through the proper pipelines.
However, they shouldn't ban the food's presense on campus so if a kid's mother wants to pack their little tubby child a candy bar in his lunch, they should be allowed to.
Additionally, this sort of ban or legislation should have no effect on private schools who have the right to do whatever they want. I don't think anyone was proposing anything like this though so I guess this point is moot.
One- and two-sentence answers earn you a one-way ticket to hell
JarJar, how can they provide healthy food, which costs so much more, when schools are having to close down essential programs, like music, arts and sports? A McDonald's cheesburger is only $1, and salads $5 or more? Take for instance this UCSD menu, which lists a pizza (indeterminite size, sorry) as less expensive than a large salad or veggie sandwhich.
That's the major crux of the problem. How can you make these foods more healthy?
Bigwheels, what are these healthy foods? And what do you eat during the course of a week? Many students who are financially unstable are likely to bring in less healthy food from home than they would get at school. The free lunch and breakfast programs that public schools have are, for many students, the only approximation of full meals they get, either through inability to pay, or lack of parents' time.
That actually a good point about self control. Limiting access to something is not teaching a child to control themselves. The ideal situation would be to educate the children such that, given the choice between junk and healthy food, they would choose the healthy food.
Its like parents who shelter their children from the world. Sure, the children grow up without experiencing anything bad, but it says nothing about their character. They were never faced with difficult choices so they never had the opportunity to make the right one.
Anyway, back on topic a bit more (and also just another tangent), this debate reminds me of the "green" movement we are having today with global warming and energy. The best way to convince people to go green is to have it effect a different kind of green: the kind in their wallet. If environmentalists want to convince the populace to go green, they need to prove that it benefits them directly ("buying cars with better mileage saves you money at the pump" for example).
I believe its the same with this healthy eating problem. If you want people to eat better, you have to make it benefit them economically. Healthy foods need to be just as cheap or cheaper than junk food. When someone figures out how to make that happen, the problem will fix itself.
i disagree. healthy foods need to be more appealing then junkfood. You need to have to want to eat carrot sticks, just as much as you would want to eat fries. How? Packaging, price, taste, ect.
I beleive that the parents are more to blame than the schools. For example lunch is only one meal of three in a day. What are these Obese kids eating for Breakfast and Dinner? I beleive the parents are at fault as well. I bet a lot of these kids have a tiny breakfast, so by lunchtime they are very hungry, so they eat a large, unhealthy, lunch. Then they go home and probably eat McDonalds or something for Dinner.
Also the kids are partly to blame to, not only for their self-control (or lack therof) but also because Obesity also results from a lack of activity. How many of these kids come home and sit on their ass while playing video games. I live at a school where I eat school breakfast, school lunch, and usually school dinner although i usually skip that and just make some popcorn. And it is extremely unhealthy. But I stay active and I am more fit than most teenagers my age.
They tried that at my school, but the stupid thing was that all the healthy shit was at least double the price of the unhealthy shit.
I'd like to see anyone buy that. At least make it the same price or cheaper!
Students at my school were quite poor so they only had about $10 for the whole week, some even had to scrape by on $5.
Not to mention that there is a bakery across the road from school (and you're not allowed to leave the school) that sold cheaper unhealthy food :x
My point is;
As long as healthy food remains expensive, it will be out of reach for the poorer families.
At my school, we're kinda luckyy.
Here we get free fruite and vegetables every day, and we are able to buy other type of food in the kantine as we like, taco, hamburger(i think it is), bread, and something to drink.
At my school, we're kinda luckyy.
Here we get free fruite and vegetables every day, and we are able to buy other type of food in the kantine as we like, taco, hamburger(i think it is), bread, and something to drink.
If they gave free fruit in America, they wouldn't eat more healthy, they would only have more food fights.
the thing is though at my school canteen you could buy a uhh meat pie for $1.80 an then some chicken salad or a normal salad for $3.80 now if ya mom was paying for you'r lunch witch 1 you think they pick 1.80 or 3.80
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