Should teenagers and children determine what they eat for lunch?

[KungKras]

WiiBox3 said:

KungKras said:
People are not used to eating vegetables at home? So many people that it actually makes the news, and they can't even eat it if nothing else is availible?

No wonder america has an obesity problem.

How does it work in american schools, do they pay for the food or is it free?

Depends on your families income. If you are a low income family, breakfast and lunch is free. If you don't meet whatever the guideline is for low income your family can pay for school lunches (Not sure about now, but when I was in school in the late80s-90s it was about $2 per lunch, also not sure if it is different from state to state). You could also choose to bring your own lunch instead, which I did until I was in 4th grade.

School lunches sucked until I was in Jr. High. We almost never got fresh veggies. For our fruit/veggie we would usually get one of the following: Dried Figs, canned corn, canned green beans, canned peas, tator tots, mashed potatoes. Then for the main course we would get chicken nuggets, rubbery pizza, cold gross spaghetti, hard grilled cheese sandwiches, a hamburger, weenier wrap, or chefs choice (Usually something that was left over). You didn't get a choice, they had one set a day. Your only choice was your drink which was Milk, Chocolate Milk, Apple Juice, or Orange Juice. The Juices were only meant for the kids that were lactose intolerant.

Later when I got to junior high we had choices for our main course which were much better (tasting not healthier). We also had a vendor in the cafeteria that sold Cinnamon rolls, eclairs, Dominoes Pizza, instant ramen and other junk food. We also had Pepsi vending machines.

There wasn't really a healthy food choice for kids unless they brought it from home. And most school food already tasted bad, I starved myself on Pizza day and spaghetti day because it was so hard to eat, so I just started throwing it away. I am all for there being healthier food served in schools, if parents want to have their kids eat junk food, they can pack a lunch.

Man, that doesn't sound good at all xD

I'm not gonna pretend that the food I got was good either though xD. I think we have a law or something in Sweden that forces schools to serve some kind of vegetable or salad. In my school we usually got shredded carrots, peas, green salad with tomato and cucumber, and the like.

Our food is free for everyone as well.

The main dishes mostly sucked though, we  often got some disgusting version of pasta with meat sauce (that everybody but me seemed to like), bland soups, bland meat, bland meatloaf (rare), fishpudding, bland fish in bland sauce, falukorv (a sausage that is usually eaten in slices or oven baked whole, I'm probably being a traitor to my country, but I fucking hated falukorv). Some things were pretty good though, like when we got Chili con Carne, or Kalops (greek meat stew) or taco beefs. Some of the worse-tasting ones, like fish pudding, I can imagine were actually pretty healthy.

In high school, food was basically the same, except you got two main dishes to choose from (or mix into one, since everything is served like a buffet where I went to school) and there were more salad choices, as well the the choice to go eat in the city if you felt like it.