School lunches have drastically changed over the years

Ethan Ruschman, sophomore

From Michelle Obama to our own school administrators itai??i??s obvious that our school lunches have drastically changed over the past few years. Ai??They have made changes such as whole wheat bread and a requirement of at least one fruit or vegetable. However if you walk through the hallways of our school, sure youai??i??ll see overweight kids but you will also see just as many, if not more, kids that are either underweight or at an acceptable weight. These kids don’t want to have to change their eating styles because of other people. That’s like punishing the whole because of the actions of a few.

Sometimes obesity isn’t the problem of the child but from genetics or a medical condition. Ai??Eating slightly healthier during one time of theAi??day isn’t going to change that. It’s also not going to change that much for the kids who just eat too much. One meal that’s completely optional isn’t going to completely fix obesity. These kids can either pack lunch or buy snacks like ice cream and pretzels which still have a lot of sodium and sugars. Ai??And there’s always the 17 hours at home where they can eat food. Ai??School lunches won’t be able to effectively alter the overweight problem in America.

And of course there’s the underweight kids. Ai??These kids shouldn’t have to lose even more weight because half the grade could be considered overweight. This could possibly bring the normal weight students dangerously underweight. Now, is that fair? And lastly even though the school takes away almost every right we students have when we walk into school (another topic for another day), shouldn’t we have the right to decide what goes into our body? If someone wants to eat a ton of junk food let them. If someone wants to eat all whole wheat and salads, let them. What we should do is teach them about the consequences of overeating not force people to eat a certain type of food.