Argumentative Essay #1

According to Smith in Family Journal (2005), junk food is defined as any food which is considered to be generally unhealthy and contain low nutritional value. Due to increasing consumption of fast food, nutritional level of Australian children has been constantly falling for the past 30 years (Weekend News 2005). Therefore, I strongly believe that the sale of junk food in school canteens should be banned as it is detrimental to health, causes behavioral problem and also because sale of junk food causes littering problem.

To start off, junk food is made up of unhealthy ingredients that deteriorate the children’s health. Weekend News (2005) reported that junk food is a main cause of childhood obesity. Children with obesity problem are prone to serious diseases pertaining to obesity such as heart disease, osteoarthritis and cancers. These problems are further aggravated by young people who consume a lot of junk food and do physical activities infrequently. One statistic shows that most of the popular snack foods are those of low nutritional value and thus leading towards disproportion nutrients intake (Health Foundation 2005). Thus, in order to prevent health issues caused by junk food, the sale of such food in school canteen should be banned.

Other than that, junk foods intake brings about behavioural problem. The chemical additives that were added to junk foods which serve the purpose of flavour and colour enhancement has been scientifically proven to trigger various behavioural problems in children, such as hyperactivity and poor concentration (Family Journal 2005). Based on Caputo (2005), a research shows that there is improvement on children’s behavior by reducing the amount of junk foods in children’s diet - after the removal of junk food and soft drinks from school canteen, students were shown to be calmer after lunch and showed improvement in their behavior (Green 2005). In short, reduced or absence existence of junk food is proven to contribute to better conduct among school children.

Litter problem is also one of the unavoidable problems that comes with the sale of many types of junk food in school canteens. With the increasing choices of junk food in schools, cans, crisp packets, cartons and plastic containers are littered all over the school compounds. Inversely, reduced spending on junk food by certain schools has proven to reduce their litter problems (Green in The Food Show 2005). Cleaning costs will go up as increasing litter leads to greater need on cleaning workers. Plus, litter mars the image of our communities. (Family Journal 2005). In short, a conducive, litter-free environment can be introduced by banning sale of junk food in school canteen.

In conclusion, the sale of junk food brings about a variety of problems such as deterioration in school children’s health, behavior problem and litter problem. The fact that the sale of junk food generates profit to the school does not justify its negative side effects. Thus, I strongly believe that it should be banned to improve the prospect of children.