America has a growing problem – literally. Childhood obesity is continuing unabated and it is time we try and do something about it.

As an education major, I am required to complete a semester of student teaching, which I fulfilled in the spring. On the days I decided to buy lunch, I took notice of what a few of my students purchased for their meals. When a pile of french fries and a slice of pizza are conveniently priced at a dollar each, it’s not a surprise to find most students eating pizza and fries every day.

This is not something we should be allowing in our public schools. We all know this country has a problem with childhood obesity, yet we haven’t made the connection that we should probably do something about the content of the school lunches, seeing as children eat at least one of their meals at school every day.

At the school, there was a small cooler between the lunch lines which contained a few sandwiches and some salads. They were priced at around a dollar or two each, which was more expensive than the pizza or the fries. Not only were they more expensive, but the salads did not look very appetizing.

As a start, we need to improve these salads or make them less expensive.

Another thing I noticed was that there were few vegetarian options each day on the hot lunch line. All I saw were the salads, sometimes grilled cheese and tomato soup, french fries and occasionally the mixed vegetables that accompanied the rest of the lunch. Providing more vegetarian options would help reduce the size of our children.

During lunch one day in the teacher’s lounge, a faculty member provided a radical idea – completely get rid of school lunches. She said that since school lunches don’t produce a profit for the school, and it would force parents and students to pack sandwiches and other healthier lunches all the time. Students would have sandwiches with more whole grains and less extra cheese. Sure, students would have pizza and fries as leftovers, but not too many families have pizza and fries for dinner every night.

There is a downside to this plan.

There are many students that are provided with free lunches at school due to low family incomes. In regards to the amount of students at any given school, the percentage of students who receive free school lunches is relatively low, but the number is high enough to cause a problem. Those students would be at a loss because they would have to pay a little more to buy a loaf of bread and some lunch meat at the store. However, the price for those things isn’t very high, and the health benefits outweigh the costs.

We have a problem in this country and we all know it. America is known around the world as having a collective weight problem. We can solve this problem by providing our children with healthy school lunch options. By allowing our children to become obese, we are telling them we do not care about their health.