Next President,

Following Michelle Obama's strive to make America’s students healthier, we need to educate and institute a stricter mandate of nutrition in American schools to improve upon her already enacted policies.

America is ranked as the 12’th most obese country in the world according to World Atlas "29 Most Obese Countries in the World" of which was last modified on the 19’th of September, 2016; nearly three out of four men in the US are considered to be overweight or obese. Michelle Obama is the first advocator of which holds a high position to really try to combat this problem in america by getting to the root of the epidemic, child obesity, starting the Let's Move campaign with the slogan of “America’s Move to Raise a Healthier Generation of Kids” covers nutrition as well as physical activity. Regarding the nutrition (what I will focus on), the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA)” deals with regulations on school food, making the food healthy by the government's standards and creating a regulation on taking enough fruits or vegetables, as well as making breakfast and lunch free for all kids in some schools. In my opinion, this is not enough to fix this issue in American schools.

While all of this may sound good, it is a matter of perspective. The school lunches that are served are most definitely not as healthy as the name of the act suggests, being that they are ladened with the cheapest ingredients available, most being heavily processed. Students routinely abuse the guidelines set for the food. When sitting in the lunchroom I see a variety of undesired actions resulting from what Michelle has instituted. First of all, I have seen kids coming out of the lunch-line with a piece of pizza and three tray-fulls of the pink yogurt and one apple of which immediately gets thrown into the wrong trash can; the problem with this is that there are no rules on how much of something you can have, only of how little, with one fruit or vegetable you can get away with tray fulls of what is essentially dessert. Secondly, there is no available nutrition facts for what you are eating, which I would think would be important to the First Lady as she has updated the nutrition facts in May of 2016 on retail food in order to help families eat healthier; to know what is in your food. Why not the same be applied for students in schools? What students eat is commonly looked over because we are young and the food we eat doesn’t affect us as much, younger students must learn the importance of practicing superb eating habits. Michelle Obama’s policy on food is solid, but in need of a recondition.

In order to mend the diet of students in America, the solution needs to delve deeper. Someone of authority needs to implement a more comprehensive food class. Rules mandating what to put on a student's plate does not give them any incentive to actually eat what is forced to be on their plate. Learning what food is made up of, as well as what the components of the food can do to your body will positively impact choice of food. Taking this step further will plant the idea which could last a lifetime to watch what you eat, and it starts where students eat a majority of their food, at school.

With gratitude,

Blaine Reylek

10th grade

Eagan

Minnesota