School Lunch: Hot or Not?
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October 13, 2010 • Lawton Jordan, Staff Writer
Filed under Student News
Everyday at lunch time you hear students complaining about the food that they were served. Some students are tired of eating the food that they are getting at school, so they decided to bring their own from home. This transition might be a better decision than eating the school lunch, as recent studies show that eating the school lunch has a higher percentage of obesity than bringing your own food from home.
The University of Michigan Health System did questionnaires on Michigan’s public school lunches. The questionnaires were focused on health and behavior and they were only used on sixth graders for almost three years. A group of U-M Cardiovascular Center researchers got the questionnaires and analyzed the data, to find out a lot of shocking results. The researchers found out that “children who consume lunches were more likely to be overweight or obese than those who ate lunches brought from home. “Children who ate school meals were more than twice as likely to consume fatty meats and sugary drinks, while also eating fewer fruits and vegetables”(University). These results are awful, just think about it. Kids/children (students) are at school for a tremendous amount of their time and if they continue to eat school lunch, then there health will continue to decrease. This discovery is very shocking, and it needs to be addressed.
“This study confirms the current and escalating national concern with children’s health, and underscores the need to educate children about how to make healthy eating and lifestyle choices early on”(University). Children don’t know everything about what they are eating, they don’t know if it is healthy or not, but children DO need to be aware of that. “Recent data show that while an estimated 30.6 million U.S. students consume school lunches, only 6 percent of school lunch programs meet the requirements established by the School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children”(University). Most children eat school lunch and many children are eating this unhealthy food.
I randomly asked about ten students in school, if they thought school lunch was healthy. 6 out of the 10 students thought the school lunch was not healthy. I caught up with one of our assistant principals, Mr. Nance, and he stated “Yes, he does think the food is healthy. The USDA and Federal Food Lunch work hard to make sure the lunch is healthy. And there is a lot of choices”. Everyone has their own opinion about if they think the lunch is healthy or not, some people think it is, some people think it’s not, and some people have never thought about it. The University of Michigan Health System’s results show that unless things are turned around, school lunch is not as healthy as your own food from home. While obesity rates continue to climb, schools struggle to maintain balance between health and taste.
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