By Kylie Capps ’14 | Staff Writer

Fries, pizza and bosco sticks are just a few unhealthy choices South’s students are offered every day.

Although obesity is not a major issue at South, there are fewer healthy than unhealthy options available in the Cafeteria. Health teacher Dan Griesbaum said the main reason schools do not serve healthier lunches is because of the cost. Schools are concerned about their budget and believe it is a waste of money to serve healthy foods if students will not buy it.

“We provide a variety of whole grain pizza, chicken sandwiches, and chicken tenders,” said Sodexo’s Local Food Service Director Michelle Knotts. “We also offer salads, a variety of wraps and fresh fruit parfaits or fruit salads.”

Knotts said South is unable to have some of these options available due to the low volume of students who eat in the cafeteria.

“South High School has a significantly lower volume than our other schools mainly because of the open campus and competition that is literally right across the street,” said Knotts. “While at (Grosse Pointe) North we might offer two entrees for the traditional home style meal, at South we would only offer one.”

According to the California Department of Public Health, poor nutrition during adolescence, from 11 to 21 years old, can have permanent consequences on cognitive development. This can result in decreased learning ability, lack of concentration and worse school performance.

“Students would definitely be less sluggish in later hours if they ate healthier food at lunch,” said Griesbaum. “A lot of students don’t realize that what they are eating affects their attention span and their behavior in the classroom.”

Schools are serving what the kids want, Griesbaum said. But the kids should be interviewed to see what they would be willing to buy so the school can offer better selections.

“I would eat in the cafeteria more often if they had a salad bar again,” said Megan Sklarski ’15. “As long as it would be romaine or spinach and came with a lot of healthy toppings.”

More fruits, vegetables and whole-grains should be offered at lunch, Griesbaum said. There would still be students who want to buy fries and pizza, but there would be more students that would offset that and choose to eat healthy.

“There are a lot of people who go to Farms Market every day to get salads,” said Lawrence Sobson ’14. “So I’m sure the outcome would be great if the school were to offer salads again.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture website, in June of 2011 MyPlate replaced MyPyramid as the government’s food group symbol. They created the image as encouragement to build a healthy plate.

Since then, Sodexo has changed their menu as a response to the new regulations, Knotts said. It is required that students have to take at least a half cup of fruits or vegetables with every meal.

“As far as whole grains, we were already ahead of the curve,” said Knotts. “All of our breads were already whole-grain bread, and our pizza is a 51 percent whole-grain crust, with reduced cheese and reduced sodium sauce. We just have to adjust our production on some things because we have those competitive sales that we have to go up against.”

Offering nutritional choices will not only make kids healthier, it will make them more active and aware both inside and outside of the classroom, Griesbaum said.

“I believe that kids generally want to make good choices. I think if they changed what is offered at South that kids would respond,” said Griesbaum.