As the second block dismissal bell rings, students run to be first in line for lunch, avoiding being the laggards who are stuck with minimal food choices. Routinely, they grab a milk carton, a tray and have a variety of food choices ranging from pizza to fries to choose from. Salad is barely considered an option.
The Food and Nutrition Services in Fairfax County Public Schools claims that their objective is to “improve the health of students by providing a variety of palatable, high-quality, safe, nutritious foods.” Pause and think about it. Do they really improve the health of students by providing high quality, safe and nutritious food? Is offering greasy fries and pizza everyday nutritious? Obviously not.
Fourteen percent of adolescents in the United States are obese, a number that has nearly tripled in the last 20 years.
These statistics are not at all shocking considering the school food options students have. But a can of soda is nearly equivalent to a handful of fries.
According to Food Manager Ted Simms, a can of soda “is full of sugar, [however] the school’s fries are very low in salt and sodium and the pizza is very nutritious and healthy [due to its] whole wheat crust.”
The school provides Veryfine juices, which contain more sugar than a can of Coca-Cola. A can of Coca-Cola has about 39 grams of sugar whereas the Veryfine grape juice can contains about 58 grams of sugar. The school by no means should not label soda as “full of sugar” when the juice being offered to students has an exceedingly higher amount of sugar.
State federal law “requires the State Board of Education and the Health Department to establish standards for the amelioration of childhood obesity in public schools. These standards would include, but not be limited to, statewide nutritional standards for school breakfast and lunch programs and the sale of competitive foods and beverages; appropriate recreational and physical fitness activities; and guidelines establishing nutritionally acceptable alternatives to the recommended dietary guidelines that accommodate the dietary needs of various health conditions and diverse cultural backgrounds of students and staff.”
Also, one of the provisions under the Virginia Governor’s standards for nutrition is that each serving of food should be less than 300 calories. This provision is immediately broken as 22 of the foods served at school exceed 300 calories, including the pizza.
So, if a student were to walk through the lunch line, grab a milk carton, fries and a burrito, that would add up to 608 calories, not to mention the chocolate chip cookies students tend to eat, which are 160 calories each. The chocolate chip cookies come in packs of three, which then adds up to 480 calories. The sample lunch would be a total of 1088 calories, which is a little less than a student athlete’s daily calorie intake.
The state’s standards for the “amelioration of childhood obesity” are rather contributing to childhood obesity, not diminishing it as intended.