Our school always preaches that it is important to eat a healthy well balanced lunch, but why are they not providing us with nutritious food? Students always learn about how important healthy food is for your physical well-being, but people fail to acknowledge how important it is for students’ mental well-being.

Your brain relies on the food you eat to function properly. If you are eating unhealthy food, you are providing your brain with improper fuel. According to Harvard Medical Journal, when you eat unhealthy food it actually stops your brain from working efficiently. After lunch, most students feel tired in their next class, but students who eat a very unhealthy lunch provided by our school feel very lethargic and find it hard to pay attention.

While it is obviously more expensive to provide healthier food instead of french fries from a bag, this would most likely turn over a profit. Most students are more attracted to the fresh healthy foods, and are willing to pay a little more for food that makes them feel energized throughout the day. The school should also replace a lot of the snacks in the vending machine with healthier snacks like Veggie Straws and replace the soda with options like juices and more flavored water. Even though it would be slightly more expensive, students would be happy with this change because of how different they feel after eating a well balanced meal.

Vernon Hills should definitely be able to make this change because schools all around us have been able to. For example, when Stevenson High School implemented a salad bar, the school was worried that they would lose money since it is expensive to have fresh vegetables. However, the salad bar actually increased their profits because students are more inclined to buy a build their own salad than a fried chicken sandwich.

Another reason that our school should be able to make this change is that our school is lucky to benefit from high tax money, and schools around us such as New Trier, Carmel Catholic, and Stevenson provide lunches that are much better than ours. They serve things such as vegetable lo mein, lentil soup, baked chicken, vegetable wraps, and more. Their menus also change daily, and there is a new menu every month. Vernon Hills rotates through menus and serves things such as fried chicken, mozzarella sticks, chili cheese dogs, Chicago stuffed pizza. The healthiest option for one week was a chicken bacon chipotle wrap.

Students should be able to come to school and get a healthy lunch that makes them feel great throughout their day. Students in sports, theater, other extra curricular activities are often times here until six o’clock or later, and they depend on the food that our school provides to give them energy for their activities. Our school should take into consideration how much time these students spend here and if the food that they are providing them is enough.

Lastly, our school should make this change for students who have dietary restrictions. They should consider the following: students with allergies to things like dairy and gluten; vegans and vegetarians; and people who have dietary restrictions because of their religion.

For people who do not want to eat meat or dairy in particular, it is very difficult because the pre-packaged salads come with meat and cheese and students end up picking them apart. This is another reason why the salad bar would be such a great idea.

Our school should practice what they preach and provide students with better quality lunches that will benefit them throughout the school day instead of bringing them down.