What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you rush to the school canteen after half a day’s lessons? Is it a pack of French fries? Is it a fried chicken leg? Is it a bowl of fish balls? This food is really tasty. But do you know what substances there are in the food?
All that junk food contains many harmful substances such as fat, cholesterol, transfat, food preservatives and the like. These harmful elements may block our blood vessels. You may even be obese if you keep eating this unhealthy food. According to the research that the Government did recently, over 35% of Hong Kong’s primary and secondary school students have a weight problem. Nearly 10% of these overweight students are obese, which increases the chance of their getting heart attacks and other diseases. Since the unhealthy food brings many bad effects to us, I do not think we still need it in school canteens.
School is a place for education. Since a school canteen is also a part of school, it should bear the responsibility of promoting healthy food to students. The school canteens should give positive messages to students. If they keep providing unhealthy food, students may build up the habit of eating junk food. Also, they may think eating junk food is not a big deal and therefore overlook the bad effects that this food brings. In order to provide students with a healthy diet, banning unhealthy food in school canteens is a must.
Someone said the banning of unhealthy food is robbing the freedom of choice of students. However, it is not true. Schools could be sending conflicting messages if they promote healthy living but let school canteens sell unhealthy food. Students may just keep buying junk food from school canteens and thus the schools’ promotion of healthy living is ineffective.
It is also said students can still buy unhealthy food outside the schools, so the banning of unhealthy food in school canteens will be ineffective. In fact, the school canteen could at least be one place that provides students with healthy choices, since there is already too much unhealthy food outside of school. This can reduce the chance of students absorbing the harmful substances in junk food. It can also give students more healthy options.
To conclude, the banning of unhealthy food does more good than harm. It helps to educate students about healthy living. It also provides healthy choices to students. Therefore, unhealthy food should be banned in school canteens.