Schools have been on a health stint for young people. More and more schools have been enforcing rules about what can and cannot be sold. School lunches are going from fried to fresh and saturated to savory.
For example, at one middle school in Michigan, soda is no longer sold and it is required that students take a fruit and vegetable with their meal. According to WOTV, the once chip-filled vending machines are now empty and everything is made with whole grains, from cookies to pizza. USDA guidelines now require “snack items to be a maximum of 200 calories” with other “limits on fat, sodium and sugar.”
But school administrators are taking it past regulating what they themselves serve. In a high school in Georgia, a student was selling regular soda from his locker because his school only allows diet soda and he wanted to provide another option to classmates. According to CTV News, the school administrators issued a warning and then briefly suspended him for selling the non-diet soda.
From elementary to high school, efforts are being made across the board to encourage young people to eat healthy. The problem arises when the same ideas are not enforced at home. When a child is told he or she can only eat certain healthy options at school, but then gets to eat Pop Tarts for breakfast and McDonald’s for dinner, the message doesn’t really get through.
Although regulating school meals is a step in the right direction, the focus should be placed more on building healthy eating habits in general. Convincing parents to serve healthy food is even more important because more meals are eaten at home than at school.
So often in elementary school, parents volunteer to help in their children’s classrooms. Why not put parent volunteers in the cafeteria? Educating parents on the importance of healthy eating is the only way to really create a healthier next generation. But these parents have the independence to choose what they want to feed their own kids.
This type of decision-making reminds me of the decisions we have to make when we come to college. It may be a stretch, but rather than an institution guiding decisions about food, we are now left to make decisions about what we do without our parents’ constant guidance.
The classic Harding example is the decision you must make to attend church every Sunday. However, it extends far beyond that.
You have the independence to choose how you spend your money. Your parents can tell you a hundred times to budget, but going out to eat three times every weekend is extremely tempting.
You have the independence to choose how to spend your time. Your teachers can tell you a hundred times to study for a test, but staying up to watch movies and eat ice cream instead is extremely tempting.
You’ve been guided your entire life and often required to make certain choices. College gives you so many more freedoms, and it’s important you make the most of them. You can splurge some weekends and it’s OK to “forget” to study for a couple tests, but keep the guidance you’ve had in mind, and carry it through to your own life and decisions.
