Niles West High School has experienced many changes since the end of the 2009-2010 school year. Construction has been introduced, the field house was redone, and the cafeteria food was readjusted. Many students agree that the cafeteria food was their least favorite change.
In the lunchroom, you would first notice the famous pizza that was awed over by most of the students was no more. Instead, the school board chose to guide their students in the “right” direction by changing the crust to wheat bread. This was not the only thing they decided to withdraw. In the new menu, they opted for the ideas of having baked chips, offering diet soda, giving students mashed potatoes instead of french fries, creating low-fat cookies and muffins, and providing the new Snapple drink.
Kids eat anything that you put in front of them. But when the food that you give them is not any good, then you’ve got a problem. The issue at the school is not trying to be healthy, but that the “healthy” food that is provided doesn’t taste good. Students wouldn’t care if the nachos chips were baked or if the mashed potatoes were substituted for the fries, as long as they tasted good. And unfortunately for the school, it doesn’t. “Grilled chicken would be nice,” says junior Christina Leon, after discussing the cafeteria’s chicken patty.
Fountain-size cups in the cafeteria are roughly around 8 fl oz. Snapple comes in a bottle with about 16 fl oz. The fountain size of regular coke is 97 calories and has a whopping 27 grams of sugar. Snapple has 110 calories and 27 grams of sugar in half the bottle. That means that in the entire bottle, there is about 220 calories and 54 grams of sugar. What happened to Diet Snapple?
Heidi Splinter, a Health and Physical Welfare Teacher at Niles West, gives her opinion on the matter. “If I drank that Snapple, I would gain weight,” she adds. Splinter says that she notices the school is trying to incorporate healthier styles in the cafeteria, but maybe something else could be done. “Food items are so expensive these days. Kids would probably buy a salad, if it cost the same as pizza.” She also brings up the idea of possibly having a student/teacher organization that focuses on what people are eating at the school, so students could give their opinions on what they would like to see and not see in their lunch.
Students become frustrated when they talk about the issue of food. “Give us options! Reduce prices! Wheat doesn’t taste good!” says a crowd of students. Katie Hoban, a junior, explains her ideas. “We’re old enough to make our own decisions on what food we want to eat,” she says. “Give us a mixture of healthy and unhealthy food, or just a bigger variety, and we can choose for ourselves.”
All in all, expectations of the students who buy their lunch, are not being met. No one wants to buy a salad worth $3.75 anymore, or have wheat bread included in everything. Many would agree healthy food in the cafeteria is not as loved as administration thought it would be. “They’re killing our school spirit,” says junior Jennifer La Gioia. “How do they want us to have spirit if everything sucks now.”
Maggie Wibright • Dec 10, 2010 at 10:17 AM
Thanks for reading Dabin and voicing your opinion. I do agree with some of the issues you’ve stated, but see it in a different light. Take a look at our lunch before we had a health change. The food that was offered was what kids were used to, and although it may not have been healthy, students depended on it. But when they walked into school this year, students felt robbed of their individuality by not being able to even voice the food they wanted to eat. Instead they were handed these options that were completely altered. We are a lucky school. We are fortunate to have all the food that is offered but students should be able to put in an input on what they eat. If we can pick our future, the college we want to go to, be responsible and join a club, do our homework, do a sport, drive a car, then how is it that we cannot pick the food we want to put in our mouths, healthy or not. And no one minds that it’s healthy, but kids complain that it tastes bad. I enjoy eating healthy food (fruits, vegetables, meat, all that stuff). I’ve never heard anyone complain that our school wants to be healthy. That’s a really good thing! But the issue was that the food that they say is healthy doesn’t taste good. So what do students buy if they don’t like the taste of anything? I’m glad our school is getting started in going towards the healthy direction, but maybe they’re just not there yet.
Dabin Chen • Dec 9, 2010 at 7:41 PM
$3.75 for a salad isn’t a bad deal. Think about it. Where else can you buy a “build-your-own” or any pre-made salad, with that many options for toppings for $3.75 or less? Even though some healthy foods may not taste as awesome as foods with lipids and MSG, this is still a good start to changing the way we eat. If we’re constantly presented with unhealthy choices, we will continue to choose those choices later on because once you satisfy your self with something, your brain will make you want to eat certain kinds of foods over and over again. This can be good or bad. It is your choice to choose what and how you want to eat. You may not always agree with what is severed at school for lunch, there are certainly a various amount of options to choose from such as: salad, sandwich/wrap, nachos/burritos, pizza, burgers, etc., but it’s just lunch. Sometimes we don’t remember how good we have it compared to middle school, or some third world country that we fund raise and try to help.
It’s about time they offered more healthy foods because before these changes there weren’t many healthy options to choose from. I for one enjoys being fit and healthy. I like these changes because now for lunch I don’t have to worry so much about what is the most unhealthy food served that I should stay away from. Now I am more a eased when it comes to cafe food because I know the food served is somewhat good for me and that I can freely choose without the guilt of should or should I not eat it.