After a long morning, Jenny got to the lunch line only to find that none of the food was appealing. All there was was cold greasy pizza and chewy burgers. She took a slice of pizza, a bag of chips, cookies, and ice cream. She looked around, almost everyone had the same lunch, consisting of sugar and grease. At the table she watched as the grease slowly congealed on her pizza. She skipped the pizza and went right to the ice cream. During third period she felt sick. School food should be healthier because students need healthy food to help their brain function, the unhealthy school food will cause the students to gain weight, and students mood, energy levels and self-esteem would increase if they were to eat better food.

First, students need healthier food to help their brain function. A study showed that a bird feed poorly fed a more nutritious meal, grew faster than normal, but it took it longer to learn a simple task (Science Daily). That goes to show that poor nutrition affects learning. On test days, your mother probably gives you a healthy breakfast so you’ll do well, that’s because it will help you brain function correctly. Current research shows that a healthy diet encourages good blood flow, which of course, helps the brain function. (Alzheimer’s Association)

Next, fatty school food will cause students to gain weight. Lunch at school is the only meal that some students receive. In that meal they aren’t getting the nutrition they need. Did you know that the chicken nuggets that most schools serve have more fat and cholesterol than McDonalds chicken nuggets? (The Oregonian). Pretty gross huh? Also, the average slice of cheese pizza at a school has about 530 calories and 21 grams of fat (The Daily Plate).

Finally, students moods, energy levels, and self esteem would increase if they were to eat healthier food. After you have a sugar high you crash, if you were to crash in school it would be hard to concentrate. Some of the feel-bad food categories are caffeine, fried foods, fatty meats, snack foods, and refined sugars and starches (msn health and fitness). That’s pretty much what they offer for school lunches. Unhealthy foods will cause the students to gain weight, and that will lower their self esteem.

While I agree that lots of teenagers like pizza and burgers, I believe that if there were some healthier foods available, they would learn to make healthier choices. Have you noticed that the health teachers teach and tell you to eat healthy, but the school doesn’t provide the healthy food. Even things like yogurt and Italians would be better than ice cream and pizza. Also, while it is true that my cafeteria has fruit salad and wraps, the fruit salad is usually in a heavy syrup and the wraps have battered, deep fried chicken. I think schools should try a little harder to have healthier things available.

Nutritional choices in our cafeterias would be a huge improvement in our school system. Ask yourself “Do I really want my children to eat pizza that is 530 calories a slice and 21 grams of fat?”(The Daily Plate). Most likely your answer is “No I don’t”. Please, go to the next school board meeting and suggest healthier food. Jenny put a yogurt, PB&J, and a bag of cookies on her tray. While pizza was still available once a week and you could still buy cookies, lunch choices were getting better. She looked around the cafeteria, everyone was a lot calmer and quieter. This was all because the school board decided to make school food healthier.


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