FOOD+REVOLUTION+ESSAY

The Issue With School Lunches

All through elementary school I had to eat the food from Ventura Unified School District cafeterias. I thought nothing of it until about middle school, where the food from DeAnza’s cafeteria was slightly nauseating. Then I started eating organic, mostly homemade and farmer’s market foods, and all food with chemicals or preservatives started to make my entire body feel terrible. Now, even though it claims to be “healthy” the cafeteria food puts me almost on the verge of vomiting.

School lunches have become less and less healthy over the past few years, in some cases even to the point of danger. People have come in and tried to help with this, and have helped us immensely, or so it seems. School lunches in VUSD have changed in terms of intent, adding seemingly healthy things like salads or veggie bu rgers to the menu, but the ingredients, preparation, and health level, have hardly changed at all.

A problem that has become more and more prominent over the past few years in America, Is child obesity, in which, food from school cafeterias plays a pivotal role. Jamie Oliver’s T.V. series, “Food Revolution” depicts that not only are we refusing to fix the problem, but are also unaware that a problem is even present. Jamie states that “the next civil rights movement in this country should be proper access to food-and it should be a requirement that every child in America receives a food education.” This quote seems to show, in itself, how much the epidemic is growing, but clearly stating that we don’t know what we’re putting into our bodies, and many of us don’t want to. Many Americans even eat out daily with the excuse that “eating healthy costs too much” or “fast food is cheaper”, but Caleb Villanueva, a high-schooler that Jamie has educated on food, both in school cafeterias and in terms of fast food states that “the biggest impression Mr. Oliver left on him that eating healthy doesn’t mean eating expensively.” Jamie Oliver, an acclaimed British chef, has seen, noted, and tak en an interest in Americas problem with obesity, and has come to our rescue…or so it would seem. Once in America, Jamie visited several schools, along with the home of an overweight family in the most obese city in the world. He gave a cooking class to a group of young children as an experiment that he claimed would not fail, as it never had in his home country. He showed the kids how to make a chicken nugget, and all of the disgusting ingredients inside, and at the end held up the friendly looking nugget, asking if any of the children would still eat it. To his dismay, every child in the room happily agreed to eating the filth. In another of his experiments, in which he worked in the cafeteria of an elementary school that is renound for its immensely unhealthy cafeteria breakfasts and lunches, with an average menu of pizza, cereal, and flavored milk for breakfast, and chicken nuggets with instant mashed potatoes and flavored milk again for lunch. Jamie was given one week to convince children who couldn’t tell a tomato from a potato that eating healthy can be tasty and fun, but to no avail. Many schools in America are creating new, healthier lunch menus, to try to keep kids in shape, but so far, they have less than succeeded. Statistics have shown that the amount of school lunches eaten plunged by about 12 percent after introducing new dishes, and is now only down by about 5 percent. But why? Some students prefer the unhealthy foods, because they taste better, and many have trouble adjusting to change, but another large issue in the solution is that, although lunches claim to be healthier, they are shipped, prepared, stored, and served in the exact same ways as the unhealthy foods, and is close to impossible to determine whether foods are truly “healthy” or not. As the school district sees it, the business is all about marketing, especially in high schools. “But as many parents can attest, trying to get kids to try new foods, especially ones that are good for them, can be a manner of wits and wills. Little kids tend to be less finicky than big kids, who look for that elusive factor of ‘coolness’ in everything from fashion to French fries.” States Christina Hoag, of the associated press. So schools have begun to strive for what teens find “cool” by changing up names of foods on the menu, and taking carts with designs made by students out onto campus, to give kids convenience in their socialization. But has it been effective? The schools say so, as more and more kids have been taking part in school lunch, and the “uphill battle to win kids stomachs” as food services director Dennis Barrett states it, is slowly diminishing.In my opinion, school lunches are no different now, with these new “healthy” menus, fun names, or different approaches, than the older, “less healthy” ones. I believe that, although the intent and approaches have changed, the chefs, if they can even be given the tittle, in school cafeterias still exhibit the same level of effort, or willingness: little to none. Therefore there is no way, seeing as preparing foods that are really, truly nutritious take some time and effort compared to preparing junk or fast foods, that the lunches could really be even slightly healthier, as they are still packaged, preserved, and, above all, instant.

All in all, it can be assumed that schools, along with districts, want to keep kids healthier, and are willing to exert some amount of effort, however small, to make that happen. Unfortunately, it can also be assumed that schools and districts may be getting the wrong ideas about what health truly is, and how to make it work effectively with the kids of this generation. Hopefully, this point can be reached before the content of school lunch becomes too large of a contributing factor to the ever-growing issue of childhood obesity.