My aunt, who has been in New York City for more than 20 years, told me that in the past, she always made her two sons’ lunches to take to school during school years which was more nutritive and less expensive. Her sons at that time were energetic and played outside a lot.
But soon after, they did not bring their own lunches anymore. They asked for money from my aunt to purchase food in school canteens. Possibly my aunt thought that she worked too much to prepare her sons’ lunches, so she allowed them to purchase food in canteens at lunch time. Gradually, a number of problems arose.My aunt noticed that giving money to her sons to purchase whatever they want, without supervision, can be very harmful. First, she spent a lot of money on her sons’ lunches.
Second, the foods in school canteens were basically junk food. Her sons became less energetic by having lunches in school. They did not play outside frequently, they played video games and watched TV at home instead. After hearing the story, I think it is high time to ban junk food in schools. So, what is junk food? Why will people be less energetic after eating too much junk food?According to an article “Effects of Junk Foods” by Vandana Bagadiya, “Junk food is a term applied to some foods which are perceived to have little or no nutritional value, or to products ZHANG 2 considered unhealthy to consume at all. They are typically ready-to-eat convenience foods containing high levels of saturated fats, salt, sugar and little or no fruit, vegetables or dietary fibre”.
The author also points out that instead of having breakfast and other important meals, many people just eat some snacks and soft drinks , which can make them feel tired.We all eat more or less junk food every day, especially students in schools. My younger sister who studies in I. S.
318 middle school told me that the school provides students with junk food such as fried chicken legs, hamburgers,fries at their lunch time every day. Worse, there are many vending machines around the school, selling soda and chips. According to a report of “whether their schools sell soda, candy, and chips, 2004”, asked of US teens aged 13 to 15, 68% of them said their school sells soda, 72% of them said their school sells candy and 89% of them said their school sells chips and other similar snacks.It shows that junk food has been widespread and uncurbed in middle schools.
As we know, children in middle schools basically have arrived at puberty. In this period, the most important stage of life, they need a balanced and healthy diet. So, they should not eat too much junk food. Junk food should be banned in schools. Also, as a student in Hunter College, I can tell that adolescents in colleges eat more junk food than ever. They get it from cafeteria, vending machines and canteens in schools.
Compared with junior high school students or high school students, college students have more money to purchase whatever they want, including junk food, possibly because they have part time jobs or even full time jobs. Based on my own observations, there are several bad phenomenon while some students eat junk food in our college. First, I noticed one of my ZHANG 3 classmates buy three packets of chips and one can of soda from the vending machine before class every time, which costs him almost five dollars.He is just an individual in this college; I can tell by him that there are also many other students who buy snacks before class. The problem is that buying snacks very frequently can cost students a lot of money.
Second, I often see some students eating junk food in class. The problem in this situation is when students eat in class, they often don’t pay much attention to what the professor says. More, students around the eaters can be affected by the sound of chewing and the smell of the food, leading to distraction. Also, eating too much junk food can cause obesity and other health problems.In the article “Effects of Junk Food on Health”, Gary Pearson points out that “the effect of junk food on health settles as bad as it could be especially when you eat too much of some”. He believes that junk food can affect the normal work of the heart, because too much cholesterol is absorbed in the body.
And if there is too much plaque that results from cholesterol in vessels, the heart has to provide more energy to pump blood, which can cause people feel tired. Pearson explains that too much cholesterol can damage the liver, and then cause obesity.In another article “Reasons Eating Junk Food Is Not Good”, Tracey Roizman, D. C.
points out that junk food can result in diabetes by elevating insulin levels. Also, junk food may lead to depression in teenagers. She gives data that consuming trans fats, saturated fats and processed food is associated with up to 58 percent increase in risk of depression. As we all know, learning tasks in colleges are heavy and everyone needs to work so hard. If students have health problems because of the junk food, it will cost them a lot of time to address these problems.
If a lot of spare time is occupied to do physical exercise and address ZHANG 4 health problems, students don’t have enough time to study and prepare tests. Worse, according to an article “Brain Damage - 87 ways to stupefy intelligence” by Hank Pellissier, during school years, “young children fed junk food develop IQs up to five points lower than healthy eaters, because they consume insufficient vitamins and minerals for optimal brain growth”. In other words, junk food can drag down students’ grades because it can decease their IQs. Of course we know the bad points of junk food, but why we can’t stop eating junk food?Sometimes junk food like snacks quiet our growling stomach; sometimes we just feel like munching even though we are not really hungry.
But the most important reason is that junk food tastes so good. According to an article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” by Michael Moss from the New York Times Magazine, America's biggest food companies employ the top chemists, marketers, and mathematicians to create foods that people are hardwired to crave. More, a wide variety of ads about junk food on TV attract adolescents to buy junk food.Many young people are very easily affected by those attractive ads and fall victims to the trap of fast, cheap, and delicious meals. Happily, there are still some successful examples about removing junk food from schools.
According to the article “Junk Food” from Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, we can know that “Beginning with the 2007 school year, New Jersey became the first state to officially ban junk food from its public schools. Soda beverages, and candies listing sugar as the first ingredient, were banned completely from school grounds during normal class hours”.One interesting thing is that vending machines in schools are not eliminated by law. But, ZHANG 5 “available snacks could not contain more than eight grams of fat per serving. In addition, New Jersey school cafeterias were required to limit the amount of fat in prepared meals”.
By doing so, the intake of junk food can be effectively controlled in schools. And it can be considered a very good way for students to keep away from unhealthy foods. Also, parents don’t need to worry about their children’s diet in schools. However, many students believe that they should be allowed to choose their own foods.By removing the junk foods from schools, students are not learning to eat healthy, they are simply being temporarily kept away from unhealthy foods.
Well, I think that view is wrong. First, the purpose of junk food companies is just to make money, they don’t care what happens to their consumers. So, if people especially students choose whatever they like, without supervision, they are likely to be victims of junk food companies. Second, as students, one of the simplest reasons to eat junk food is that junk food is directly supplied in vending machines and canteens in school.What’s worse, there is a constant stream of junk foods are provided.
Schools have some responsibility for the health of students. Schools need to provide more nutritious foods such as sushi. Some people would say it is not practical to remove junk food from school. I would say, nothing is impossible.
Since New Jersey has made a great success in banning junk food from schools, many other states followed suit. We have reason to believe that a nationwide ban on junk food in schools is on the horizon!
