Fighting For A Better Health

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N. Snow

English 1A TTh-6 pm

Assignment (Essay #3)

10/03/2002

Fighting for a Better Health

As of today, America has undergone many issues involving health like diabetes, heart disease, and lung cancer. Many of the health issues are caused by components very well known to us such as pollution, alcohol, drugs, sexually-transmitted diseases, and so forth. Little was known about the fact that food, being an important necessity for human life, has started America's major epidemic among children and teens -- obesity. With more than 50 million youths attending schools everyday (HHS 1), it's scary to think of the fact that three-fourths of the adolescents don't eat a healthy diet. In order to fight against the trend of obesity, we must take action with methods to reduce the rate in which obesity is growing among adolescents.

The voice of the people has already gotten government officials working together with school and state officials to develop ways to reverse the trend of obesity in teens starting with schools. With one out of seven students being obese (Brownlee 1), high schools are the main targets to fight obesity. For this reason, government nutrition inspectors sought to find out what America's children were eating; to their surprise, they found that the majority of students only consumed high calorie snacks and chips along with a high volume of carbonated drinks rather than the school cafeteria lunch. The foods that are consumed by the students have lower nutritional values than that of the government standards. Several students were asked why they would eat low nutrition foods other than that of the cafeteria; many said it's because of the long lunch line while others responded that the cafeteria food tasted horrible. Nicole Talbott, a student from Fremont High in Oakland, California, said, "Lunch for me is chips, soda, maybe a chocolate ice cream taco. Everyday, just about the same thing. That's all I eat - the bad stuff" (Egan 1). "Most of it's a time issue," "claims Mary Ann Weber, assistant director for the division of Child Nutrition Services for the Ohio Department of Education." "Kids don't want to stand in line" (Vail 2). Through my experiences in high school, I remember that many students don't have the patience to wait their whole lunchtime in line, especially when several schools only schedule twenty minutes of lunch. In order to combat against the purchase of soda and snacks during lunch, principals have stopped the operation of soda and candy machines to stop the competition. This gives the students no choice but to eat a healthy school lunch; of course, the students would be able to buy as much candy as they would like before and after-school or during any extracurricular activity.

Another proposed deterrent is the complete no-sale of soda and candy anytime within school property, otherwise known as a ban. School officials observe the banishment as a major solution to decrease the rate of obesity among students in America. Even though Federal law prohibits the sale of foods containing "little nutritional value" in competition with the school lunch program (Vail 1), many parents repeatedly argue about the fact that this act of limitation eliminates their students' freedom of choice. Several high school students agree. As spokesman for the Center of Consumer Freedom, John Doyle says, "They can eliminate everything they want, and it will not do one thing to curb obesity" (Egan 3). On the other hand, various school districts have postponed acts of limitation on fattening foods and beverages due to other reasons.

The number one reason is the fact that the schools would lose thousands of dollars a year in lost contracts with food companies. According to an industry study, schools across the country get about $750 million annually from contract deals with companies who are granted permission to sale junk food on school premises (Egan 3). As in the cases with the Oakland School District and Pinellas County School District, already having the food ban in place, which where able to lose about 500,000 to 650,000 dollars and the schools