amie+Oliver+Essay

School lunches. What’s the first thing you think of when you hear this? The United States is proven to be the most obese nations in the world, and serving unhealthy processed food to the younger generations in public school isn’t helping. Although some adults aren’t bothered by this, it needs to change in order for the future adults of our society to live a longer healthier life.

The main problem Jamie Oliver faces is teaching kids how to eat healthier, since public schools fail to teach their kids what healthy foods are. Our public schools are feeding kids unhealthy, fatty, and processed foods, which are proven to shorten your kid’s lifespan. Jaime Oliver feels the need to turn this dilemma around. In the second article, Oliver states, “These 17 year olds leaving school do not have nearly enough basic information about food and how to make better choices.” This quote reveals the diminutive knowledge kids possess about a healthy diet nowadays. Oliver elaborates that being healthy isn’t only for the rich. “Jamie taught us that not only rich people can eat healthy, in reality, anybody can eat healthy with just some thought. You don’t need to fry chicken in oil, you can put it in the oven and roast it with some herbs.” However, a great amount of children enrolled in public schools do not take this into consideration. Any iconic food that is placed beside a better choice of food would surely be the first to be chosen by young children.

In order to cure this problem, Jamie Oliver goes to a school located in L.A., and attempts to educate the children about where their food comes from. In an article Oliver declares, “We need to address the food situation at schools, if we don’t, we are failing our kids.” These string of words articulate how teaching our kids of the future is an important aspect on building a better and more healthy life for them when they’re older. In addition, Jamie Oliver mentions, “The civil rights issue in this country should be a proper access to food—and it should be a requirement that every child in America receives a food education.” Oliver believes that with just a little more effort from teachers and parents to take the time to teach kids about making healthy choices and exposing them to what isn’t healthy can majorly cure the problem at hand.

Many can say serving healthy lunches in the public schools is a quick and easy fix, but kids would rather bring unhealthy lunches from home just to fulfill their cravings. A petition at Roosevelt High School brought to conclusion, “We, the students of Roosevelt High School, would like to be served food that we can enjoy rather than the ‘healthier’ food that we just throw away.” This clearly identifies how even though school lunches can be improved in nutrition, it doesn’t help the fact those kids are still going to eat unhealthy otherwise. It is proven that about 75% of lunches from home are potentially worse for you. Some creative tactics schools brought to the table are bringing carts of food through the campus to make the food look more appealing, or placing the fruits and vegetables in the beginning of the lunch line so kids are more vulnerable to picking these items up. These specific ideas encourage kids to eat the healthy lunch because instead of waiting in a lunch line to get food they wouldn’t enjoy, the shorter lines at these carts prevail as a quick and easy way to pick up lunch without the hassle. This may not give the best results anytime soon, but overtime with just a few creative ideas, it can turn this nation around. Like Oliver says, “The campaign to get people to stop smoking didn’t happen overnight.”

In my opinions, Jamie Oliver’s action toward improving the school lunches is a fantastic idea. Not only is he feeding nutritious food to kids who need it, but he teaches children about making healthy choices as well. Every parent should take the time to tell their children what the good and bad foods are, moreover letting their children know where which food comes from. School faculty has become outraged by Oliver’s doings, because they don’t seem to find anything wrong with their regular everyday menus. Parents are also heated. Reason being, the kids choose not to eat their healthy food, and it ends up in the trash by the end of lunch. Giving children no other choice but to eat the better foods is a better solution, than just giving them anything they want, just because it tastes good.

Changing the eating habits in America is greatly a struggle. Through fatty school lunches to the food in the grocery store, many of it may not be the best thing for you to put into your body, but with a little help from teachers, parents, and other educated adults, it can cure the illness known to be spreading around our nation, obesity. It will take time, but is can surely be fixed.