Food Laws and Regulations

In our CyberEnglish class, we were told to do a report on a topic about nutrition that interests us. The topic that we chose was food laws and regulations. The reason why we choose that topic was because we had a strong feeling that there should be way more laws about how healthy food should be and about businesses in the food industry. We started asking a bunch of questions about that topic and the question that we really wanted to find the answer to was “Shouldn’t there be more laws against how unhealthy school food is?” In this report, we’re hoping to show you that the government should put more regulations about school food, and just food in general.

Although some schools are attempting to make their food healthier, the government clearly needs to put an effort to make it better. A school in Massachusetts recently passed a law limiting the amount of supersized foods, fatty foods, greasy foods, and high calorie foods. The USDA also recently passes a law that makes school food a lot healthier, such as cutting the amount of sodium used in half, cutting the amount of calories, making schools use more whole grains, limit the amount of starchy vegetables, and requires schools to serve low-fat milk.

Those laws helped a little bit, but not enough. Today, 1/3^rd of kids that are 6-19 years old are obese. There are some laws about limiting the amount of soda and snack machines in schools, but that has little to do with childhood obesity, considering kids can just get unhealthy food in their lunch line.

So, why wouldn’t the government want to help the cause? Schools feed more than 31 million kids nation wide, and 16% of schools don’t pass inspections, when they do actually happen. 26,500 school cafeterias aren’t inspected nation wide, which could obliviously be extremely hazardous. USA Today reported that from 1998 to 2007, over 23,000 cases of foodborn illness was linked to school food. According to the USDA, the state only reports schools are failing, but they don't report schools with health hazards. USA Today did a pole asking parents if they were confident that the government makes sure that public schools are sanitary, and 50% of parents said that they were "somewhat confident". Some politicians say that the government has no right to say what kids can and cannot eat, but little do they know that they could make a big difference. It’s a proven fact that if kids grow up with obese parents, chances are they’ll grow up to be obese. And if 1/3^rd of America’s children are obese, imagine how much that number will increase when they have kids, and it’s just going to get worse. Plus, kids learn better when they eat healthier. Schools say that it costs too much to offer healthy food. However, shouldn’t the schools care more about the health of their kids than what is in their pockets? Health classes teach about eating healthy, but then schools feed them extremely unhealthy food. The government should help make school food healthier because the kids who eat that unhealthy food every day is America's tomorrow.

Hopefully the facts and information presented to you above got you thinking that the government should help lower the childhood obesity rate by placing more laws on how healthy school food should be. Many people say that it’s the parents fault if their child is obese, which is partly true.  Although schools can’t control what kids eat at home, they can control what they eat at school. If the government forced schools to serve healthier food, the childhood obesity rate would probably go down. The only thing stopping the government from creating more laws is the dying want to save money, but the children should be more important.  

We interviewed 13 9th graders from Sheboygan Falls High School. This shows that the majority of people agree that the government should place more laws regarding how healthy school food should be.  

Jalonick, Mary Clare. "New Rules for School Lunches Proposed | Local News, Sports, Weather, Blogs, Opinion, Crime, Obituaries, Business, Directory, Marketplace, Education, High School, Family, Shopping, Arts, Entertainment, Movies, Books, Cooking, Auto, Real Estate, Jobs, Classifieds, Photos, Videos, Comics, Contests, and Mountain Pass Webcams from Wenatchee, East Wenatchee, Chelan, Leavenworth, Waterville, Cashmere, Quincy, Entiat, North Central Washington Newspaper." The Wenatchee World | Local News, Sports, Weather, Blogs, Opinion, Crime, Obituaries, Business, Directory, Marketplace, Education, High School, Family, Shopping, Arts, Entertainment, Movies, Books, Cooking, Auto, Real Estate, Jobs, Classifieds, Photos, Videos, Comics, Contests, and Mountain Pass Webcams from Wenatchee, East Wenatchee, Chelan, Leavenworth, Waterville, Cashmere, Quincy, Entiat, North Central Washington Newspaper. 15 Jan. 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <>.

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