New Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act

The average school lunch has about 821 calories and 30 percent fat. While, according americanheart.org, the average sedentary teenage boy should consume less than 2,400 calories and the average sedentary teenage girl should consume less than 2,000 calories. According to yoursewickley.com, this means that at school, a teen boy consumes more than one-fourth of the daily calories he needs and a girl consumes a little bit less than half of the daily calories she needs. This only includes the meal and not the extra snacks that most people get at the snack line.
This is no longer going to be tolerated if the Obama administration has anything to say about it. That is why on December 13, 2010, President Obama signed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. According to whitehouse.gov, this Act was made to “authorize funding for federal school meal and child nutrition programs and increases access to healthy food for low-income children.” This act gives the USDA the authority to set nutritional standards for all foods regularly sold in schools during the school day, including vending machines, the “a la carte” lunch lines and school stores. This means that many of the chips and sugar filled drinks sold at the snack line would not be available. The administration would also offer additional funding to schools that met the new nutritional standards.
Freshman Cory Boucher doesn’t like this idea because he said he gets food from there every day. Regardless, the act is “a good idea because kids will be less obese and it might be healthier,” said Boucher.
The Obama administration will also help schools and communities to make gardens, although they would not be mandatory. This garden might be run by the student body. For example, Urbana High School’s students in FFA could take care of the garden. These fruits and vegetables could replace the canned vegetables and fruits that are currently used in lunch rooms.
Junior Treyton Ward said this would be “a good idea because we would know where our food is coming from.” Senior Elijah Grant said the garden was a “bad idea because of vandalism.”
The Obama administration is also going to make it so that schools would be encouraged to use locally grown food. “This might make the food cheaper,” said Ward. They are also encouraging schools to use food that has higher nutritional value.
Another thing that the Obama administration is going to try is to make water more available to students. This may not go over well with students who prefer more sugary drinks, but the aim of the Obama administration is ultimately to improve the health of students.
Overall, students had very mixed feelings about the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.