BY AMANDA MARCOTTE
Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced their efforts to change school meals nation wide in order to offer students more fruits and vegetables. The administration also introduced reduced salt and fat content. This long delayed announcement, presented by Agricultural secretary Tom Vilsack and First Lady Michelle Obama, occurred three months after the food industry won a vote in Congress restricting the administration from passing a proposal that would have reduced some items that contained starch, such as potatoes and rice, and would have banned schools from considering the small amount of tomato paste on a slice of pizza as a vegetable. However, schools all around the nation continue to serve starchy items and pizza is still considered a vegetable.
Despite these efforts Broward County’s school lunch selections continue to stir up health concerns. The county continues to serve students unhealthy foods on a daily basis, including pizza, fries, and chicken wraps. In addition to the daily items, the county has a monthly schedule of lunch selections that rotate every two weeks at all Broward County schools. These items include tacos, chicken nuggets, popcorn chicken, etc. If Broward County introduced healthier meals to their school lunch program, students would get a better source of nutrition and it could also improve their school performance.
Although many people have taken action to fix the imperfections, most attempts to make school lunches beneficial to students and their health have been unsuccessful. Recently Broward Public Schools removed the rice from tacos due to the high starch content. If starch is something the school is trying to avoid then why not remove the fries or pizza considering there is high starch content in these items as well? Instead of completely removing all food items and introducing healthier meals the lunches are being slightly tweaked and remain nearly the same as before. On the bright side, more fruits and vegetables are being introduced into students diet. However, the fattening items are not being removed. Therefore the students may get some healthy factors in their meal, but it defeats the purpose when students are consuming such unhealthy main course items.
Jamie Oliver is a British chef, restaurateur, and media personality famous for his televised cooking shows, books and campaign against processed meals in schools. He started the School Lunch Revolution campaign in 2010 after witnessing what students in Britain were consuming at school. His non-profit organization, The Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, or “JOFF” has nearly 800,000 supporters. His organization helps the people being affected to get involved in order to reverse this issue. He goes into great detail for the cooks, students, teachers and parents on how to stop schools from serving unhealthy foods. To fix this problem serious action need to take place. This includes more nutritionists, equipment in all cafeterias to serve fresh meals daily and funding. All it takes is one persons voice to start a worldwide revolution and Oliver is taking it one step at a time.
One of the largest issues America faces is obesity. It’s apparent that substantial action needs to take place to reverse this crisis. School lunches are a prime example of what’s wrong, because every single day students have the option to purchase unhealthy and fattening foods. What students are eating now can possibly affect them for the rest of their life. It’s crucial to fix the problem and introduce a healthier diet to schools before its too late. Communities nationwide must take responsibility and spread the word. One of the best ways to reverse this issue could be to participate in the JOFF and promote the foundation in your community. It only takes a few minutes of your time to pass the message and those few minutes could mean a possible food revolution.
