| Anti-Vending Machine Change | | Print | |
| Wednesday, 11 October 2006 | |
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Two dollars for a pathetically tiny bag of granola? How about only cardboard-like baked potato chips? No chocolate – at all? Recently, Portland Public Schools made a catastrophic mistake. School vending machines – previously home to all varieties of goodies, from M&M’s to Coke – have been invaded by mere overpriced mockeries of food. Part of a plan to crack down on adolescent obesity, the removal of “bad” foods does not begin to address the real issue at hand. It’s all about choices. If I choose to buy a Diet Coke from the vending machine, I will still choose to buy Diet Coke – I just get creative and hoard them in my locker. The school’s attempt at taking away my right of choice does not in any way deter me from my unhealthy habits. If anything, it makes the amount I consume increase – from sheer obstinacy. Portland Public Schools is trying to take away our right to choose. I don’t want to have health food pushed at me. I want to be able to stroll out of my second period class and pick what I want to eat. And by God, if I can’t buy one measly bar of chocolate before math, there’s something insanely wrong with the system. In a recent Grantonian poll of faculty and students, 74 percent considered this switch a negative one – though, as one might predict, 100 percent of faculty said otherwise. These teacher supporters cite less traffic in halls and less hyper students as some of the benefits of the switch. Will the lack of delicious foods in the vending machines make the student body healthier? Probably not; it will just make us a little more creative. Will taking away our basic right of choice help foster health eating habits? Doubtful. Will granola be enough to pick up your spirits before a math test? Impossible. Some say Grant’s new vending machines are an improvement – I say otherwise. Leave the granola for somebody else. The schools won’t see any more money from me; I’ll get my food elsewhere. |
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