Junk Food Should Be Banned In Schools

How often do you walk through a shopping centre only to catch the scent of a fast food take away shop around the corner? The smell of the food instantly fires up your appetite for the greased up substance people consider food. So you tell yourself why not? It's there, it's cheap, it's easy, and so you indulge yourself and tell yourself, "Only a little bit won't hurt, will it?" While snacking on a large McDonald's meal, and why not a box full of greasy goodness for the kids. It comes with a toy, what a bonus! But is this the example we want to be setting for our kids. For many years now obesity in our nation has become a clear problem in our society. It has taken over possibly even faster than when the flu spread over our once healthy nation a century ago. This is a trait we have unfortunately passed on to the next generation with childhood obesity on the rise. Recent studies have shown 1 in 5 adults are obese, with roughly 20% of children either already obese or overweight, which will in most cases progress into adult obesity. But what is the cause? One of the solutions could quite well be in the hands of our beloved school canteens.

In our generation a lot of parents are finding it harder to prepare their kids breakfasts' let alone their own. Like a new trend breakfast skipping has become quite popular in schools, with many students coming to school unfed waiting for recess to snack on the fried food sold at the canteen. But this isn't the answer, not only are the students already under-nourished from skipping breakfast they are digesting large amount of fat and unhealthy foods from the canteen to compensate skipping breakfast. Most schools around Melbourne start their recess in between 10:30 and 11 o'clock; would you want your children eating this junk at that time in the day? I certainly wouldn't, and it's likely than 75% of the canteen ladies wouldn't want their children munching on this garbage in the morning either. So why do they do it? This is a real problem, no wonder more students are complaining about the work load in school, half the time they don't even have enough energy to go through the whole day with the junk sold in the canteen.

But then again, why shouldn't we have it? I mean it's so cheap and so convenient to have breakfast, morning tea and lunch ready for your child at such a small price. You would be saving time not having to go on weekly shopping visits but you'll be saving money buying already prepared food instead of having to buy every single ingredient and preparing it yourself. It's only your kid's future after all. But why stop there? Why not ditch weekly shopping altogether, there is local fast food venues everywhere, just grab a bite to eat from the local fish n chips or better yet grab a bucket of deep fried chicken from KFC? It is easier after all. This is the kind of attitude that we are passing on to our children. Many families have a set night for having takeaway each week, some may even have two. God gifted us with two hands yet we are becoming an increasingly lazy nation with a lot of parents opting for an easy take away meal rather than preparing a home cooked meal for the family. So with this attitude children would now rather pay for an already prepared meal of grease at school than to make their own healthy lunch. Canteen administrators really need to make healthy food available so that at least these children who are buying their lunch from school get something healthy and actually worth their money.

I

...