The War on Junk Food: Is it Working?

Due to the increasing concern of childhood obesity, BC schools placed a ban, starting last September, on many of the calorie-laden snacks that graced our cafeterias and school vending machines. In place of these “bad” foods, schools are opting for healthier options like veggies and dip, 100 per cent fruit juice and sugar-free sodas.

However, students are starting to think that they are not being given the opportune situation for healthy eating. “Most of us can just run to the corner store and grab some chips,” says an eleventh grader at Oak Bay High School, who happens to be munching on a ridiculously enormous bag of Cheetos. It seems as though it’s impossible to truly ban junk food, if convenience stores stocking a plethora of sugary goodness and a dozen different fast-food joints are adjacent to your campus. But even if the students themselves were willing to not go to the corner stores, and make a conscious effort to eat healthier, the options they have at school aren’t easy on the wallets or appealing to the taste buds. And this makes it hard for students to take this ban seriously at all.

“It all comes down to how much money you have on you, and what your school has to offer,” comments Caity, another Oak Bay student, who is eating out of the now-communal Cheetos bag. “If the foods that they sold were healthy, cheap and didn’t seem like space food, I might actually pay attention to this ban,” Caity adds.

Space food is putting it rather gently. Though most schools do offer real fruits and vegetables, it’s only during lunch or break-time. The thought of actual food between classes seems almost laughable when you take a look inside of a vending machine – small bits of jerky, protein bars and freeze-dried fruit. Not many students would want to nibble on those for an afternoon pick-me-up.

And, although those items are said to be “much better for you,” many of the foods that are being stocked in schools have just as many calories as their processed-predecessors; not quite what so-called healthy eating is all about.

It looks like the war on junk food is a battle that won’t be ending soon.