Federal Aid allows some students to be eligible for free lunches. However, many of the lunch foods at H-F aren’t the healthiest for our bodies, as they’re filled with unhealthy fats and empty carbohydrates.

Senior Nia Williams is one of the many students at H-F who gets free lunch. People who are eligible for a free lunch receive a full meal. This includes a main food, side, and drink, but you cannot get any grab-and-go snacks.

“My lunches everyday would add up to about five dollars, and five dollars a week every week of the school year is a lot of money and some parents just don’t have that money to spend. Especially with sports fees and registration fees, [Federal Aid] really helps out,” Williams said.

Williams is one of the few kids that gets salads everyday. But everyday, the lunch lines with the unhealthy foods are still packed.

“Over time, the food choices really affect your internal organs,” Gym teacher Catherine Brown said.

Foods such as pizza, burgers and fries can be very harmful to our bodies because of all of the fats and saturated fats in the greases. This fat increase can raise cholesterol levels and eventually cause a heart disease or stroke.

“Maybe [pizza, burgers, and fries] should be an every once in awhile kind of meal,” Health teacher Wendy Bean said.

Brown and Bean inform that an average person should consume up to 2000 calories per day and exercise for at least 30 minutes.

“Especially for boys who are really active as teenagers, their [calorie intake] is going to be higher than that,” Bean said.

Although people need a certain amount of calories, it’s important to recognize the good and the bad calories that are put into your body.

“Try to maintain all of the food groups, at least having some protein, carbohydrates for energy, minimizing the sugars and drinking water,” Brown said.

A great way to learn more about nutrition is by going to the Cadaver Lab, which is where you can see what foods do to your organs over time.

“It’s a really good way for people to get a little bit of extra help with anatomy and get a visual compared to just looking at a book,” Brown said.

You can also go to choosemyplate.gov to find what your personal balanced meal should consist of. This website will ask various questions to provide the best diet for you.

“Instead of dealing with a lot of processed foods, like out of a can. I highly try to steer away from that [for the students],” South Kitchen Manager Danielle Rainey said.

Rainey gets to decide the H-F menu with the food director.

“Of course I want [the students] not to eat so much junk food because we do have healthy alternatives such as the Origins and Deli sections,” Rainey said.

Gym teachers seem to notice the lasting effects of the foods sold in the cafeteria.

“A lot of the time the participation in the sixth hour students are a little more rambunctious and less focused. So maybe that could be due to the snacks or food they’re eating in their lunch periods,” Brown said.

These school lunches have been debated over many years and their have still yet to be the elimination of the greasy, unhealthy burgers, pizza and fries that harm our health.