No Lunch Left Behind: A Theoretical Analysis

Over recent years, the United States obesity epidemic has increased in abundance to the point where an individual should be worried about making healthier life choices. Eating habits are an immense reason why our health has changed for the worse since the 70s. People die young due to developing obesity related diseases. Diseases occur from choices people make, what one decides to eat, and how much an individual decides to eat. Studies show the life expectancy for an unhealthy person who chooses to eat a bigger portion size, often less than the average individual who keeps a balanced way of eating. An individual is at fault, choosing to eat unhealthy or not, yet fast food restaurants can make a change when advertising fast food, providing the

In the newspaper article, “No Lunch Left Behind,” by Alice Waters and Katrina Heron, the authors inform the audience, “But food distributed by the National School Lunch Program contains some of the same ingredients found in fast food and the resulting meals routinely fail to meet basic nutritional standards. Yet this is how the government continues to ‘help’ feed millions of American schoolchildren, a great many of them from low-income households”(4). Waters and Heron argue school programs provide unhealthy food on a daily basis, which accustom the students to not having a choice, yet to eat it and not starve. Students may not realize that the food being served is technically as bad as going to a junk food restaurant. The fast food industry is constantly improving everything to get people to come back and order the “new,” that will benefit them in many ways. Fast food chains tend to always make their prices cheap and try to give the customers more bank for their buck, yet those calories aren’t helping one bit. People would think it’d be healthier to eat at school, though many students don’t like the school food and choose not to eat, therefore being hungry all day, disturbing the ability to pay attention in class. A student is expected to put their 100% in doing their best in school, with that said, if one does not have meals that energize them to keep going, how do teachers expect

Yes, one may understand that our budget is low and healthy foods tend to always cost quite a bit more, yet that should not mean anything because this is an individual’s health we are talking about. In the newspaper article, “No Lunch Left Behind,” by Alice Waters and Katrina Heron, the authors make it a point that, “Cash-strapped parents should be able to rely on the government to contribute to their children’s physical well-being, not to the continued spread of youth obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other diet related problems”(10). Waters and Heron want to prove that a good, free lunch can exist, although people need to be willing to help in one way or another and contribute to a making a healthy meal being provided at school. What about the students who are suffering from a disease already? What do they eat at school, knowing they have to watch what they eat on a daily basis? If an individual has a problem, and is suffering from a disease that makes it impossible to eat the unhealthy food being served in the cafeteria, what is he/she going to eat when they forget to pack their lunches, or don’t have time to make one? If there were people to encourage us to eat healthier and exercise daily, a decreasement in obesity would occur. Schools that introduce healthful foods in the classroom are more likely to be eaten at