Health of Local Food Program

Main Question:
Is the school food healthy enough for us?
We eat our school food for lunch for 180 days and we want to know if it is making us gain weight.

Sub- Questions:
Is any of our school food actually made straight from the kitchen?
Should they be serving unhealthy food, especially for breakfast in the morning?
Would we be healthier if we ate food brought from home?

On average, how many calories do you think one school lunch contains?

Where does our school meat and poultry actually come from?

Thesis Statement: 
The Sheboygan Falls High School lunch program serves foods to students that are unhealthy.

Introduction:

We have been eating our lunches from school for about nine years now and this is our first year that we have had a choice to join the ala carte line.  The ala carte line is where you can choose what you want to eat and pay for it separately rather than getting a tray and having the main meal and a fruit or veggie.  The only problem is that we aren’t sure how healthy it is to be eating pizza and juice, everyday.  Is our school food healthy enough for us?  This question really needs to be answered, we eat school lunches for about 180 days a year and we want to know if it is making us gain weight.  Our CE9 classes took a survey and one specific question helped us understand what is being chosen to eat in the lunch periods.  According to the website, Share Our Strength, “49.1 million Americans - including nearly 17 million children - lack the means to regularly put enough nutritious food on the table.”  Not eating enough nutritious foods is very easy to do at this school; we don’t have much variety to choose from.  The Sheboygan Falls High School lunch program serves foods to students that is unhealthy.

Our Report:

Unhealthy food is being served in Sheboygan Falls High School.  There’s no doubt that other schools are much healthier than Falls though.  The nutrition rules for school lunch programs have hardly been updated since the 1970s, according to USA Today.  The rules haven’t been changed in over 40 years, that’s unhealthy and definitely unsafe. It’s wrong to be serving children food that is different from what adults ate years before us in their high schools.  Schools use meat that other companies reject, “The hens they buy are basically rejects, called "spent hens," which are too old to produce eggs anymore and whose meat is of questionable quality” (USA Today).  Fast food companies like KFC don’t even buy these meats.  The truth is scary sometimes, especially if you’re the one stuck eating those lunches.

The government controls the school food. According to Mrs. Shelly Juedes, the director of food service at the Sheboygan Falls School District, the school food is healthy because the federal government orders everything under 10% of saturated fat. When eating out of the regular lunch tray at Sheboygan Falls High School you are required to take three out of the five choices you get (entrée, lettuce, fruit/veggie, milk, or grain).  Mrs. Shelly Juedes explains that, “Obesity is not from school lunch, it’s from kids being inactive.”  Some people believe that it’s not the schools that are making kids unhealthy, but yet it's the  students that are getting unhealthy. 

School lunch foods are supposed to meet the federal laws.  According to the School Nutrition Association, “Ala carte foods are not required to meet federal laws.”  If the school is purchasing the ala carte food, then they make the decision on how healthy they are.  Sheboygan Falls High School freshman took a survey and over half of them take ala carte food for lunch.  If the ala carte food that Sheboygan Falls High School purchases are unhealthy, then half of those students are consuming unhealthy lunch meals.  The School Nutrition Association states that even though the ala carte food is not required to meet federal law, it requires nutrition standards.

The class of 2014 at Sheboygan Falls High School recently took a survey.  The number of participants in the survey came out to be 128 students. All of the questions consisted basically around food.  The graph displayed under this paragraph shows the answers to the question, “What do you usually spend your lunch money on? Choose all that apply.”  Ala carte pizza is the top food eaten in the lunch room at Sheboygan Falls High School.  This data explains the type of food sold in the lunch room.  As you see, the foods sold at this high school don’t sound very healthy. The numbers stand for the percent of students who choose to eat these foods.  If you choose to eat unhealthy pizza for lunch, everyday, you will become an unhealthy eater. 

Conclusion:

Half of the Sheboygan Falls High School students eat out of the ala carte line.  The Sheboygan Falls High School is providing foods in the ala carte line that is unhealthy for us.  Obesity is a huge epidemic in the United States and it needs to stop. The students aren’t getting the nutrients they need in the school day because even though the school is offering them, they aren’t requiring the students to take them.  The Sheboygan Falls High School needs to do something about this, and it needs to be done now!

Citations: (alphabetical order)

Jalonick, Mary Clare. "Congress Takes Aim at Unhealthy School Lunches - Health - Diet and Nutrition - Msnbc.com." Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News - Msnbc.com. Winter 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36023553/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/.

- This website states how congress is starting to fight back on the unhealthiness of school foods.

"Mrs. Shelly Juedes, Director of Food Service at Sheboygan Falls School District." Personal interview. 16 Mar. 2011.

Park, Madison. "She Ate 162 School Lunches -- and Blogged It - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 21 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/21/nutrition.year.review/index.html#.

- This website was very gross to read; the pictures made us realize that our lunch is a lot better than most.

School Nutrition Association. "School Meals Proven a Healthy Choice." School Nutrition Association. Spring 2001. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. http://www.schoolnutrition.org/Content.aspx?id=6926.
- This website states the myths and facts due to school meals.

Share Our Strength. "A Healthy Start to the School Year." Share Our Strength. 19 Dec. 2010. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. http://www.strength.org/our_impact/hunger_in_schools/?gclid=CICsrvLWxKcCFYjsKgodkC3AFQ