I am just a few months away from receiving a diploma worth twelve years of education and will stand on a stage facing my fellow peers, family and loved ones. At that moment I will be able to reflect upon what I have learned in various classrooms such as information that is said to helpful in life. One of the most useful concepts that are briefly discussed in Health and Physical Education classes is how to be a healthy individual, but this is ironic. These classes promote things such as eating healthily and exercising daily which can be very complicated and will create unnecessary stress on an individual. I propose that instead of taking this approach to live a healthy lifestyle let's promote one of greatest strengths of America to the youth, junk food.

Many people may be alarmed at my previous statement because they do not associate junk food with a healthy lifestyle, but let me explain. Living a healthy lifestyle is not as simple as the education system makes it seem. Not only are you supposed to exercise daily but maintaining a balanced diet simultaneously is very crucial. As the website, The Week, states “$1.50. That's about how much extra it costs per person to eat a healthier diet full of vegetables and lean protein every day, according to a holistic new study from Harvard” (Gayomali). It may not seem like much but for around $550 a year, it starts to add up especially if you are trying to feed an entire family. This can cause unnecessary stress which can affect an individual's health, unlike the more wallet-friendly option, junk food. We already have one of the best established junk food industries in the entire world. The typical person can name several fast food chains but they are most likely unable to name the same amount of places that provide  the typical “healthy” meal. This can help society since they would learn to accept fast food due to all of the benefits such as convenience and the easy access that most of us have.

Unlike promoting the traditional healthy lifestyle, I suggest we start promoting junk food to the youth because it allows the government save a substantial amount of money. They would not need to invest money towards promoting this new lifestyle in schools but just allow the food industry to do what they are already doing, promoting unhealthy foods to the youth. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Nickelodeon, a television network that is targeted to the youth already has 70% of it food ads promoting junk food. ("Nearly 70%”).  Not only is this the best quality food according to the food industry but it is also what the public wants. This is not surprising when taking a look at a the U.S. News article, Less Than 3 Percent of Americans Live a Healthy Lifestyle it states “Researchers say that, unfortunately, the other 97.3 percent of American adults get a failing grade on healthy lifestyle habits.”(Preidt). This comes to show how the education system promoting the wrong thing to our youth because it contradicts what media wants us to consume.

As one of the major influences to the younger generation, what is being shown not only in the media but also in schools can have determine the choices youth make later on in their lives. Although I am about to graduate from the public school system and go to a university where I will no longer be considered a child as I once was. We as Americans have an important role in deciding to make the change, of promoting a healthy lifestyle to youth across the nation.