Oliver Brown, a student in the humanities magnet at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, writes:
In past years, students have watched in horror as their favorite fatty and sugary vices have slowly disappeared from school cafeterias and vending machines. The product of a school board decision imposed in 2004, LAUSD has proceeded to ban soft drinks, trans fat chips, and candy from lunchrooms, attempting to replace them with healthier, smarter options.
At left, students go through the lunch line at Hollywood High School.
This sudden absence of the essential, and by far most prevalent, adolescent drugs did not, however, deter teenagers; instead, it elicited an onslaught of rogue sugar dealers, myself included. Selling from dingy stairwells and dark, deserted hallways, I, alongside my fellow comrades in arms, pushed candy and confectionaries to the students of Hamilton High School: a dollar a doughnut, 50 cents for every crumpled, timeworn bag of hot Cheetos. As our tribe of underground dealers made hundreds in faded, one-dollar bills, school officials remained flummoxed at this new surge of scattered pink boxes and candy wrappers. A cold and calculated war began between these two opposing fronts.
While I watched soldiers falling to fines and two-day suspensions, our seemingly innocuous venture began to reveal itself as a far more insidious crime. Selling the very items I avoided in my own diet, I came to realize that I was peddling obesity to students who were often already overweight or unhealthy. After all, I had proselytized the teachings of “Supersize Me” to everyone I met, and sold Kit Kat bars while wearing my thrift-store “Go Veg” T-shirt.
However, my inner conflict was resolved when my own demise came in the form of a grand sting operation. Stealthily followed by security guards, a vice principal, and the dean of discipline, I was cornered, my product taken, and my parents promptly called.
It is from the hypocrisy of this arrest that I find myself angered and betrayed by the school system. While LAUSD flaunts its new “Cafeteria Improvement Motion,” an attempt to bring nutrition into public schools, we have truly achieved very little. Although the Domino's pizza has disappeared, it has been replaced by an equally unhealthy, and most definitely greasy, alternative. Researching for a school paper, I found that a startling 90% of all materials used in Hamilton lunches are either canned or frozen. Sufficient nutrition and health classes are lacking. As of now, LAUSD food is despairingly unhealthy, sadly under-portioned and, frankly, disgusting.
Until the administration sees fit to change this riddled and unsatisfactory system, Hamilton cannot deem that we, the individuals, with our backpacks stuffed with 99-cent Lays and gym bags filled with doughnuts, are the problem. When my school district truly turns towards healthy, organic and hormone-free alternatives, I will be perfectly happy to relinquish my well-crafted ruse.
Photo: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times
