Junk Food in Schools Essay Example
Junk Food in Schools
There is something wrong when salsa passes as a vegetable in the school cafeteria and students can buy soda and candy from vending machines on campus. With this in mind we can only begin to wonder what the future holds for today's adolescents. When students are exposed to a life of poor nutrition, the result can be obesity and regrets (CBC, 2006).
For countless children, breakfast or lunch drops out of a vending machine at school. This can be a can of soda, perhaps washing down a chocolate bar followed by a bag of potato chips. Students may be junk food junkies but the schools are hooked as well and have become increasingly dependent on the revenue that soda and candy machines bring in each year (Mueller, 2007). While soda sales may help supplement the school's bottom line, health experts are increasingly worried that soft drinks are contributing to a student's poor health. It was concluded that teen-aged boys' soda consumption has tripled in the last 20 years and doubled for girls (CSPI). Teens now drink twice as much soda as milk. On the other hand, children are taught in the classroom about good nutrition and the value of a healthy lifestyle, but we continue to make the junk food available to them. Our children's eating habits are engrained in them from a young age, so what are we teaching our children? At what cost is it ok for junk food to be available to them at school? Studies have shown there is an increasingly large amount of our children with Diabetes Mellitus type two. This disease was at one point an adult's disease, but the lifestyles we now lead this has become an issue for our children. The rate of type 2 diabetes is at an all-time high in American children. In September last year a report by the Institute of Medicine had criticized the efforts to tackle child obesity (CBC, 2007). The report said although many measures were in place they were proving ineffective. We are not only seeing Diabetes but we are also
There is something wrong when salsa passes as a vegetable in the school cafeteria and students can buy soda and candy from vending machines on campus. With this in mind we can only begin to wonder what the future holds for today's adolescents. When students are exposed to a life of poor nutrition, the result can be obesity and regrets (CBC, 2006).
For countless children, breakfast or lunch drops out of a vending machine at school. This can be a can of soda, perhaps washing down a chocolate bar followed by a bag of potato chips. Students may be junk food junkies but the schools are hooked as well and have become increasingly dependent on the revenue that soda and candy machines bring in each year (Mueller, 2007). While soda sales may help supplement the school's bottom line, health experts are increasingly worried that soft drinks are contributing to a student's poor health. It was concluded that teen-aged boys' soda consumption has tripled in the last 20 years and doubled for girls (CSPI). Teens now drink twice as much soda as milk. On the other hand, children are taught in the classroom about good nutrition and the value of a healthy lifestyle, but we continue to make the junk food available to them. Our children's eating habits are engrained in them from a young age, so what are we teaching our children? At what cost is it ok for junk food to be available to them at school? Studies have shown there is an increasingly large amount of our children with Diabetes Mellitus type two. This disease was at one point an adult's disease, but the lifestyles we now lead this has become an issue for our children. The rate of type 2 diabetes is at an all-time high in American children. In September last year a report by the Institute of Medicine had criticized the efforts to tackle child obesity (CBC, 2007). The report said although many measures were in place they were proving ineffective. We are not only seeing Diabetes but we are also