Fast Food/ Food In America - Comments

Audrey T. I guess you missed my statement when I said we need to eat healthier and stop eating the crap they serve. Or perhaps you didn't take the time to read all of it. I'm not blaming anyone but the people getting the good.

Oh and when's the last time you've been around high school kids? Yes, some of them understand that what they eat can lead to weight gain but like I said before, the point I was making is that if they continue to practice these eating habits, it'll carry on into their later lives and that's when they'll get much more weight gain.
And if only you hear what some of the students at my school say. Not too long ago I saw a girl eating Bojangles and I can tell she eats it on the regular and these are the exact words she said "I don't get any fatter" do you understand the issue?

If you didn't read all of the article, I advise you too because you're making false assumptions.

Insanity's Artist - that sounds horrible... hahahaha. And I thought my lunch food was bad.

I would much rather eat the food out of vending machines every day for the rest of my life rather than eat the disgusting crap my school come out with.
There are three things we are served everyday without fail: pizza, burgers, and burritos. The pizza is made by them and nearly always leftover from the day before or two days before. The burgers and the soggy baked fries they come with taste like molded card board and taking a bite of it makes me want to throw up. The burritos might as well be filled with mud for all the flavor they have.
Sometimes we have spaghetti or lasagna or hamburger helper in the pizza line. Each one tastes the same. Like moldy cheese and mushy noodles.
Sometimes we have chicken nuggets. We get five, with a fruit and nothing else unless we pay extra. They're not even worth the 2.00$ they cost, because they're soggy and tasteless.
On Wednesdays, we get chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and rolls. That's the only day we get a decent amount of decent tasting food, but the steak is chicken BAKED steak and soggier than the nuggets. The mashed potatoes and rolls usually taste pretty good, but last week you could tell they were left overs... from the week before, because we only have them once a week.
The milk is left out in the open before and throughout all three lunches. You want to drink warm, spoiled milk? No one does.
The portion of food we get is the same amount that preschoolers get. I can understand them trying to keep students healthy, but underfeeding us is not the way to go about it. Yes, if we buy more, we get more, but it's not worth it, and some people can't. Like me, for example, I get free lunch because my mom doesn't have the money to give me for lunch, much less any extra. I would totally bring my lunch but we don't have enough food at my house to do that. We are supposed to get food stamps soon and when that happens, I will bring my lunch, but until them, I'm stuck eating barf-inducing, "healthy" school food.

Also, I don't think people's weight is the government's, the school's or anyone else's business. People want to eat unhealthy food; let them. It's not your problem or your responsibility. There are a lot of other issues people could be focusing on other than the weight of the country.

As for your article, I would have liked to see it a lot more organized and more facts. It was confusing and you didn't back up a lot of what you said.
Also, I don't like your title. You should use something that flows more, something that's not broken up. Plus, you talked about school food, too, but your title makes it seem like your strictly talking about the fast food in America.

[b]Self-control and self-responsibility[/b]. That's the real issue here. Not what food and beverages are sold to students, not the big bad fast food industry. Students (and adults alike) need to makes better food choices. Blaming schools and the “Food in America” is only pointing fingers and not dealing with the actual problem.

To say "[i]diet soda equals weight gain[/i]" is a gross oversimplification of the studies done on this. While drinking [i]too much[/i] soda (or juice or any other beverage other than water) and not getting enough exercise (along with a ton of other factors) [i]might[/i] cause a person to gain weight, the two certainly aren't mutually exclusive. And it's terribly misleading to state otherwise.

[i]They should know that children of our age have the mind set that we will and can never get fat no matter what we eat and they knew that’s fictional.[/i] Again, untrue. Many (if not most) high school students (and even younger kids) [i]know[/i] that certain foods and the lack of exercise can get them fat and affect their bodies in other negative ways. Many teens are very much aware of weight issues and are constantly looking for ways to control their weight, so to say that kids think they "can never get fat" doesn't make much sense. Simply because teens [i]ignore[/i] the fact that eating unhealthy can effect their bodies, doesn't meant they're unaware.

[i]For example, at my school Domino’s pizza used to deliver their food to our school for students to eat. Now it’s a place called Little Caesar’s. Why? Why do they do this to us?[/i]

Really it's a matter of freewill and having students this old (of high school age, since we're not talking about elementary or even junior high school students) learning to make better choices and not always give into temptation. The junior high school I went to had a Burger King around the corner, a McDonalds across the street from the Burger King, a Chinese restaurant that opened at 8 in the morning, and several pizza shops and bodegas within walking distance. There was also a Chinese vegetable and fruit market that sold fresh-cut fruits in to-go bowls, an inexpensive vegetarian restaurant that made the best small salads, and several street venders selling fruits. I think throughout my entire three years there, I went into the Burger King twice – once to buy fries and once to change out of my uniform in their bathroom.

Students [i]are[/i] perfectly capable of making the right dietary choices, and if they don't, they have no one to blame but themselves (and perhaps their parents/family, if they're living a generally unhealthy lifestyle). Having schools ban foods deemed “unhealthy” isn't going to stop kids from eating unhealthy. Unless they also start doing bag searches to make sure kids don't bring in unhealthy foods from the outside, and they police nearby restaurants to make sure students don't visit them before or after school either, and they install cameras in every students home to make sure parents are serving them unhealthy meals...

It's unrealistic, isn't it? To blame schools and the food industry for making people fat or unhealthy. Everyone always has a choice. If you don't find the healthy food in your school to be “tasty” (and honestly, whether it's healthy or junk, it all taste on the same level of blah), there are other alternatives. Bring lunch from home, it's usually cheaper and you can better monitor what goes into your body. Eat the fruit that comes with the school lunch (I know that all school lunches provide a serving of fruit too, an apple or orange or pair). Drink low-fat milk instead of buying a Snapple or soda from the vending machine. Or simply don't indulge in junk food EVERYDAY.

People are the ones who need to change. Make an actual effort to eat healthier and make better choices, rather than blame it on the food itself. No one is shoving anything down the students throats. If they don't want to eat junk food, they don't have to.