Beginning early in life, American kids are exposed to the dreadful food choices provided by our school districts. We are offered greasy tater tots, sugar filled desserts, and fat filled pizza. In America today, nearly one third (31.3 %) of children ages 10-17 are overweight or obese. When we spend 13 years of our lives whittling away in schools that feed us unhealthy, toxic, and unwholesome foods, that percentage should not be a surprise.
If we actually open our eyes and take a look at the rest of the world, we can see how bad American school lunches actually are. Around the world, kids are being fed fresh and nutritious foods that fuel their brains and bodies. Meanwhile, America is still lending out diabetes and obesity.
Not to say America has done nothing to help childhood obesity and quality of school lunches, but it is very slim. In 2010, former U.S. president Barack Obama signed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, requiring child nutrition programs to improve and provide healthier meals in schools. This in turn helped kids throughout the nation, but we might see a reverse in this progress with our new president and conservative republican representatives and their opposing viewpoints on the Obama administration’s strive for change.
What many seem to overlook is the absolute dependency for nutritious foods at school for many kids throughout America. Here in Highlands Ranch, we can easily look past our fortune and luck. In our lunchroom, we are offered fresh and nourishing food every day, but in other schools throughout the country we can see a drastic difference. Currently, there are millions of kids in America who are dependent on school lunches. My simple question now is why feed those millions of dependent children cheap, unhealthy, and poisonous foods?
A change isn’t too far from reach. We as a whole just need to make the decision to change, and we are more than capable to do so. School districts have to strive for a difference or it will not happen, and that should not be an option. We should not accept that one third. These kids are the future and we need to treat them as so, but that can’t happen with the school lunches provided today.
