Health Rules For Selling Food Products At School

Why is it that every time you walk into a school, elementary, high school, college, etc, there are more and more vending machines that are crammed full of candies, pop, and basically just junk? And, there are more kids in line at these machines than are in line for the hot food in the cafeteria?  While most kids think that it’s “uncool” to eat in the cafeteria, they will agree that there is too much junk available for them to eat.  So, why is it so hard for us to get health rules for selling food products at school in place to keep the vast majority of this junk out?

While we sit and wonder, and try to teach our kids to eat healthier, the government does not back us up.  In 2005, the USDA decided not to enforce rules that it had made about how much junk food can be offered in schools across the United States.  This was a big blow to any parent who has an overweight child and is longing for the machines to disappear just as fast as the appeared.  If the USDA and the government in general can’t or won’t even back up it’s own rules about how much junk food can be sold in schools, how can we?

A lot of schools around the country have begun to take it upon themselves to try and help our kids eat healthier and make better choices at lunchtime.  Most have taken out a few or all of the vending machines that only carry junk food and either replaced them with healthier alternatives or replaced them with more items on the menu for our kids to choose from.  So, while we struggle with the children who are overweight and try to teach them the better things to eat, it is a good thing that the schools themselves are trying to step in and help us parents out since there are no health rules for selling food products at school in place today.