Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

I believe that high schools all over the country should have a healthier selection of foods. In my high school, the only healthy food you could eat were the salads that were sold half frozen or the sandwiches that were served with what seemed like artificial meat. All of the other food included cookies, potato chips, pizza, burgers, French fries, deserts, etc. The generally unhealthy selection of food served in school cafeterias, are a great contribution to today’s childhood obesity problem. How can you blame someone for choosing to eat a deliciously styled ice cream sundae over a cup of fruit that was concocted earlier that week?

For the few people that do try to stay eating healthy must pay a hefty price for those sandwiches. Sandwiches can cost up to $6.00, with the additional purchases of tomatoes and cucumbers for $0.50 each, along with an additional $1.00, if you just want a little more meat. These high prices further puts down the hopes of anyone who dare eat healthy in the high school cafeteria. Prices are a huge reason why some people fill up on $0.33 cookies. It wouldn’t be a strange thing for someone to buy six cookies for $2.00, and call it a meal. The huge price differences between healthy and unhealthy foods in the high school cafeteria, diminishes any remaining hope a dieting person may have. It is no surprise to me why America has such an obesity problem. When people are grown up with such bad eating habits, of course they will struggle to remain healthy and have a proper diet. “Approximately 30.3 percent of children (ages 6 to 11) are overweight and 15.3 percent are obese. For adolescents (ages 12 to 19), 30.4 percent are overweight and 15.5 percent are obese.” (1)

Although the obesity problem in America is getting worse, there is still hope. Changes must be made today in order to deter the health problems of tomorrow. We can start by having healthier selections of foods in schools all around the country. More and more kids will eat the healthier foods, especially if the supply of unhealthy foods is also lessened. Parents should teach their children better eating habits, so that those kids will choose the better choice of food when they enter the cafeteria on their own. The way parents raise their child is a huge role in determining whether that child will be obese or not. Instead of treating your child to cake and ice cream for being good, you should treat them to fruit and yogurt. By teaching young kids good eating habits early on, it won’t be such a problem for them later because they’ll be used to eating healthily. Obesity is a serious problem today and before it should be corrected, it should be prevented.

--ndias 13:58, 30 November 2006 (EDT)