Sunday, February 19, 2012

SWA#12


Waters, Alice. "A Healthy Constitution." The Carolina Reader: Third Edition. Ed. Lee Kauknight and

      W. Matthew J. Simmons. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press, 2012. 337-338. Print.



                Ms. Walters is well respected in the food services community. She is the founder and owner of the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Chez Panisse restaurant respectively. She is an activist for healthier food options in schools and a strong proponent of “edible education.” “Edible education,” is a theory that healthier lunches in schools will lead to students being healthier and succeeding more in school and the community. It follows that students will not only be healthier physically, but also mentally.

                To build her case she cites people such as Thomas Jefferson who said “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.” She also takes quotes from students in the California area who all had positive experiences and benefits from healthier lunches. Her main argument is that we should care more about the places where the roots of life are being nourished.



1.       The author’s main point is that taking responsibility for yourself brings about better benefits. She says it fosters in responsibility to other aspects of your life including responsibility to people other than yourself. 2. The link between healthy meals and learning is about the principle of taking ownership of your actions. Eating an unhealthy meal is the same as not doing your homework, nor doing it in poor fashion.  Waters only supports her argument with one example of a school that had dramatic increases in positive aspects and decreases in disciplinary problems. She also cites three students which healthier meals have benefited. She would have been better off by stating actual facts and statistics rather than hearsay and one example. In addition, I think that Walters does not address the fact that the parents of these students have control over 75% of their daily intake of food and that they should have their kids eat healthier.


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