Student Opinions of School Lunches
At Arrowhead High School, hot lunch is an everyday thing for students, especially for those who don’t have cold lunch, forget their lunch, or have assisted meals. But one thing the students question is the health and quality of the food served.
Arrowhead high school has been serving hot lunch since the day it opened. Hot lunch is a huge help by providing students without cold lunches food, which improves their classroom work. But according to some students, they have to deal with some unappetising foods. Too much cheese on the pizza, soggy corn dogs, liquidy nacho cheese, and even chicken soaked in questionable juices. These choices make kids choose unhealthy foods or make them not even eat at all.
There are two sides to the lunch room showdown. Students and teachers that enjoy the lunches and students and teachers that do not choose to eat hot lunch. Students walk into the serving area and see many options like nachos, tacos, and sub sandwiches. The lunch room provides variety but students have other things to say. Greta Truttschel, a junior from Arrowhead said this, “There aren’t many healthy options available for hot lunch, and the food doesn’t show high quality.” For students like Greta, fake looking chicken or greasy ham causes her to lose her appetite. And losing your appetite sometimes means losing the will to eat at all.
When students go through this on a regular basis. At one point, they’ve had enough. When a student is unimpressed, they will sometimes have to resort to the objects they know will satisfy their taste buds like an IZZE, a cookie, or a Rice Krispie Treat. These objects are unhealthy but when the students can’t take anymore hot lunch meals, they will resort to this. Jon Daury, a junior from Arrowhead, had this to say, “The food didn’t look appetizing which made me not like it as much and choose unhealthy choices.” The lunch cookies are a popular choice. Cookies like the Famous Amos bag contain 150 calories, 10 grams of sugar, and 7 grams of fat in only four small cookies. Students like Jon sometimes resort to only eating foods like this. Which is extremely unhealthy. 3 out of the 3 students questioned said that they don’t know how healthy the meals are and two out of the three students did not enjoy the lunches or felt the quality was awful.
The students that are on the side of liking hot lunches sometimes question the health aspect. A Junior Sadie Sarinske, a regular for hot lunch, had this to say about the lunches, “There are a lot of options and their snack section is stellar, but the health is questionable.” A student that eats the lunch every day is questioning the health, which is not a great review for the Arrowhead lunch program.
