Public Schools Need to Provide Better Lunches for Students

The public schools in this country are a main problem in instilling America's youth with bad eating habits. There are many issues with how food is provided to students at school. Ultimately, it is the school's responsibility to set a child up for success, teaching them about proper food choices and giving them those options for lunch.

"Shaq's Big Challenge," a show centered around helping obese students in Florida get into better shape, brought to light many problems with the way kids eat, both at and outside of school. What was dreadfully apparent from the very first episode was the lack of responsibility the school directors and parents take in the overall health of their children. Schools blame the strict budget for sub-par lunches. Parents blame the kids not eating things that are good for them. No one is taking responsibility for the health and long-term welfare of kids under 18 years old.

The lunch provided at the featured schools in Florida needed to cost around $1 per student. Within that constraint, they provide the usual kid favorites like burgers, chips, pizza, maybe a piece of fruit if you're lucky. With kids not eating well at home (skipping breakfast or having sugar cereal, eating take-out most nights), the bare minimum would be a nutritious lunch for students to keep their minds and bodies sharp during the school day. In addition to the lunch itself, health classes are moving the curriculum away from nutrition to sex education and other subjects. While other health areas are important, nutrition shouldn't be fazed out of a child's education.

We already know that more money needs to be allocated for public schools in this country. Art programs, better technology and, in this case, better food available to the students, all require money. Setting them up for success needs to start somewhere. It is unlikely that it will start at home, where parents are working longer, spending less quality time with their kids and stopping for pizza or Taco Bell on the way home for the family's "dinner." Influencing the kids at school may influence the home from the outside in. A child may start asking why they don't have a quality, sit down dinner very often or why they don't have fruit, vegetables or whole grains in the house. Kids can be a tremendous influence on their parents over the course of time. They have to get the knowledge and motivation to make personal changes from somewhere to make those things happen.

A difficult reality of feeding students junk food at school is it leads to poor habits once they're on their own. Once in the college environment, they continue to make poor choices. After high school, most students are less active and gain weight at a more pronounced rate. Their self-esteem suffers and they turn to "good ol' food" for comfort, becoming obese and continuing the cycle. Once they get a job in the real world, their activity level drops even further - leading to more comfort food. They spin further into the hole of life-long obesity.

While offering better food choices for students at lunch will not magically turn society into a healthy and conscious nation, it will save more than a few young people. Currently there is a vicious cycle of poor health under the age of 18. Until a kid is old enough to take responsibility for their own actions (18-21 years old), we (meaning parents, schools, mentors, coaches, etc.) have a duty to provide them with a good foundation of knowledge to develop and use on their own when they leave the house. Right now, parents and schools are not doing their duty to the younger generation coming up in the country. Schools need to step up their education of health and food budgets in order to provide nutritious options for a student's lunch. Without change, the obesity problem in America will only get worse.