Our Children's Health is Too High of a Price to Pay .
We've all heard the saying, "You are what you eat!" How healthy you eat does in fact, play a role in determining how healthy you are going to be. Sadly, many people ignore this fact, and they start ignoring it at a very young age. Newest statistics on child obesity, given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state that "teenagers today are almost three times as likely to be overweight as they were 20 years ago"(Winter par.4 ). As much as it is important to practice healthy eating at home, the school, where the students usually spend breakfast and lunch at, plays a vital role in the health of our children. Schools should not permit the sale of junk food on their campuses. This is the first step at turning around the problem with childhood obesity. The school is a place that teaches values and practices that students take into their lives outside of school as well, and practicing good food habits will lead to more healthy bodies.
Besides the reading, writing, and arithmetic, schools are a major influence in a child's life; the friends they choose, hobbies they acquire, how they treat their peers and elders, and even the foods that they eat. In the classroom, students are taught not to speak while the teacher or fellow students are speaking. This lesson is a factor of how that child will treat ones elders and peers when he/she grows up. It is the same ideology for junk food in schools; if a school gives its students the impression that it is okay to have a bag of chips and a can of soda for breakfast, by not enforcing that they can't, these bad eating habits will continue on through their whole lives. The only reason that kids eat junk food over healthier cafeteria food is because they are used to it. If the students didn't have junk food then they would adapt to eating nutritious food. Judy Stewart, a school nurse for over 18 years, told about a situation at her school where they bought a milk vending machine.