Junk Food Should be Banned from Schools
Ew... Do you know how many calories are in a single chocolate chip cookie? I bet most people have no clue. There are 170 calories in just one cookie, according to Dunkin Donut’s nutrition catalog. Whether junk food should be allowed in schools or not is a huge focus on the U.S. government. Should mandatory restrictions be put into place to keep students from eating junk food at school, or are such restrictions unnecessary? This is the question we are faced with today. Junk food should definitely be banned from school for numerous reasons. The prohibition of junk food will benefit everyone as it will be one less thing the world needs to worry about.
First of all, junk food leads to many weight and health related problems. For example, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and chronic health conditions are only some of the diseases you can get from eating junk food. In addition, the level of obesity is rising rapidly among kids and adolescents. According to researchers at Harvard University, “By the year 2050, the rate of obesity in the U.S. for kids is expected to reach 42%”. This shows that in the future, many children will become overweight, which will lead to way too many problems. “Our country has the highest rate of obesity, and we are the fattest nation in the world”, says debate.org. If we don’t watch our diet carefully, we might even become the dumbest nation in the world because eating too much of it will damage your health, therefore damaging your learning habits, as studies have shown. So, junk food can be so destructing towards your well-being and makes people very overweight.
Furthermore, junk food has little to no nutritional value, and we need to teach children about eating healthy. First, school is where children spend most of their time. Therefore, school should be the place where children learn the right nutritious things. According to ‘Issues and Controversies’, “In 2003 and 2004, 19% of children ages 6-11 were overweight, and 17% of children ages 12-19 were too”. This is because schools don’t teach children what they should be really eating in their diet! This shows that many children were obese, but that was 10 years ago. Think about how the numbers would change today! The numbers would shoot up faster than a blink. In addition, “Only 21% of youth ages 6-19 eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day”, according to preventioninstitute.com. In other words, barely anyone gets the nutrition they need! This clearly shows us that we need to teach children what the food labels really mean. Also, there are excessive levels of sugar, salt, fat, and calories in junk food. As you can see, junk food is very unhealthy since there are few vitamins and minerals in it.
As the final point, junk food can be really addicting. For instance, one small, 2.1-ounce bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos contains about 25 chips and 17 grams of fat, which is more than some 8-ounce steaks have! According to Junior Scholastic, “When fat-filled snacks melt quickly, your brain doesn’t receive a message about the calories, so you just keep on eating”. This results in more cravings of junk food and sweets. Moreover, junk food activates the same areas in the brain as drugs of abuse such as cocaine and can lead to similar symptoms”, says junk food expert Kris Gunnars Everybody knows that cocaine is so hard to stop once you tried it. What if this happened to anyone who ate junk food? This is why junk food should be banned before anyone goes crazy. Soon, there will not only be drug addicts, but also junk food addicts! To prevent this from happening, junk food needs to be abolished because it can cause obsession over nothing.
The idea to keep junk food deserves some merit. But, banning it from schools is actually the way to go. Some people may think that selling it can give schools money. On the other hand, schools should not compromise students’ health just for money! What is more important, health, or money? Further, I understand why people may think that students should be able to make their own decisions on what they eat. However, their parents are usually the ones that control what they consume. Lastly, other people may argue that schools are already teaching children about eating healthy in health class. But, are they really? If schools really are, then why are they still selling so much junk food? That is hypocritical. As you can see, there are way more pros of banning junk food from schools than cons.
Without a doubt, schools need to eliminate junk food out of their sight. There are abundant health problems that go with eating too much junk food, firstly. Second of all, there is little or no nutritional value to junk food, and it is so necessary to teach children about healthy eating habits. Finally, junk food addicts people like videogames and drugs. Junk food is the nicotine! We do not need that in school systems! Junk food has no benefits and is not needed. If we want children to stay healthy and alive, get rid of these killer foods! We need to stop junk food from controlling the lives of people!