Food fuels the body and provides it the energy that it needs to grow, develop, and function. A person needs to receive a certain amount of protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and grains everyday keep their body healthy and functioning. Receiving healthier food and the right amount of every food category is especially important for children to grow and develop because this is the time where the body and brain do most of their growing and development. Children spend most of their childhood in school where they can eat one or two meals a day. For some children, these are the only meals that they will get. A majority of food provided to students is just reheated, nothing is made from scratch. Elementary schools in South Carolina need to implement healthier food options for children and teach students how to pick these healthy, balanced meals when they are out of the school setting which can be argued by Lawrence Hardy, Mark Bittman, and Joel Salatin. 

Laws have been put into place for schools and the food schools should provide to children, but there are no regulations about how these new laws should be implemented in schools. There are people like Michelle Obama who is a strong promoter of eating healthy and getting active, but looking at the schools you can see that this is not the case. Younger students, such as elementary aged children, do not have a voice in the food they are being served. I find it interesting that such a large population has no say in what they are being served in schools. Food is important to learning and focus. I want to be an elementary school teacher so this topic has a major affect on me and is very important to me. We want our students to be successful and the food that they are eating is not providing them with that. It is an important issue that does not get talked about enough.

I know when I was in elementary school I begged my mom to pack me a lunch so I would not have to eat the schools lunch. I distinctly remember the school pizza that was more like cardboard than it was pizza. I recall a student drinking from a milk carton and the milk being spoiled. I wish I could say that it was a onetime thing but that would be a lie. Food would even be undercooked. I have done some research on this issue though it only scrapped the surface. I am currently studying to become a future educator and am learning about child development and the factors that can affect how they develop. Research has helped reinforce what I have been learning and the information that I already know.

Lawrence Hardy wrote an online article called "Where the Health are We" published in 2014 that brings up the importance of providing children with healthy food. Hardy mostly argues about the issue of childhood obesity in the United States. Data shows that the rate for childhood obesity has remained steady though the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has data claiming that it has decreased, this is due to the age range the CDC did their research on, two to five years old.  Lawrence Hardy brings up the argument of how the regulations that schools are to follow are unfunded mandates which means that the school does not receive money to implement these new regulations. Hardy values the importance of a healthy school lunch. School is where a majority of a student's meals come from. Eating healthy along with exercise keep children's bodies in shape and allows their bodies to obtain the things they need to help their bodies develop. Lawrence Hardy is a writer from the American School Board Journal. His work was published by the National School Boards Association. Hardy's bias comes from his assumption that people know about the different programs and laws that are already set in place by the CDC and other organizations like it that if you do not already have background information in then it is unclear as to whether these laws and programs are successful or not. It is prevalent that schools can help aid in providing students with healthy options, but schools need aid from the government to obtain this more expensive source of food.

In the Carolina Rhetoric, Mark Bittman's article that was published in the New York Times in 2011 called "Bad Food? Tax It" which argues that unhealthy food like soda, fries, doughnuts, and hyperprocessed foods should be taxed. These taxes would be nationwide. In turn those taxes could be used to lower the cost of healthy food that would allow places such as schools to be able to purchase healthy options like fruit and vegetables. Bittman is interested in the eating habits of Americans. He points out that heart disease, diabetes and cancer can all be caused in part by the American diet. Bittman calls for the implementation of taxes to encourage Americans to eat healthy food since they will not choose to do so themselves since junk food is cheaper to buy than fruits and vegetables. Mark Bittman writes for the opinion section in the New York Times. Bittman assumes that the audience knows about healthcare bills that are already in place and the role that the government has in public health. Most people do not realize that the government has control over this part of public health which includes the subsidizing of fruits and vegetables and increasing the taxes. Bittman's argument is to subsidize fruits and healthy foods to help places such as schools to be able to gain access to healthy food by creating a tax on junk food.

Joel Salatin's "Declare Your Independence" published in 2009 in the Carolina Rhetoric, argues the importance of going away from processed foods that are full of chemicals or are genetically modified and to instead eat locally grown food. Salatin backs "opting out" which means to stop eating food that is genetically modified or confined animal feeding operations and other signs of unhealthy food. He favors eating local food and learning to cook again, something Americans seem to have forgotten. Joel Salatin values the importance of eating food that is not processed and going back to the basics. He is interested in spreading the importance of making home cooked meals that are made from scratch with foods that are unprocessed. Salatin values treating animals with respect by giving the proper living area. Joel Salatin is an alternative farmer at Polyface Farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. He has been published in "The Omnivore's Dilemma", the documentary film Food, and Food Inc. Salatin assumes that people know about the different processes that go into farming on industrial farms and processed foods. Being a farmer, Joel Salatin has good background knowledge in how farms work and the processes that go in to growing foods. Americans live in a time where getting a truly home cooked meal is something of a special occasion and can no longer tell the difference between foods that are processed and food that is truly local.

Arguing in favor of having schools provide students with healthy food options is a feasible argument because child health is an important topic that is brought up copious times in America. Advocates for better child health include Michelle Obama, the first lady to Barack Obama. Some researchers argue that it is not the schools fault for unhealthy eating habits while others argue that schools are not doing enough. The challenge with finding research for this topic will be deciphering which statics are true or finding information that is creditable. Some researchers write articles that are not creditable because they do not have reliable sources in their argument or are opinion based arguments with no facts to back what they are arguing. Arguing for healthier food in schools is feasible though finding creditable sources to aid in the argument might pose a challenge.

It is obvious in America that people do not eat the foods that they should eat. That is why it is important to give children the resources to learn about healthy food options and provide them with healthy food. Wanting to be a teacher has really helped guide me towards this issue. Writers such as Lawrence Hardy, Mark Bittman, and Joel Salatin argue about how actions need to be taken to help create a healthier diet among Americans and provide both sides of the argument in all of their arguments to give them that creditability. Schools need to be given the resources so they can help create a healthier America full of citizens that are knowledgeable about the food they are eating. 

