fast food and supermarket chains in schools
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 2:08 pm
Academic Writing Task 2.
Some people argue that fast food chains and supermarkets can promote their products to schools and that schools benefit from it. Is it a positive or negative development?
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A strong opinion is gaining ground that schools are a natural sales outlet for mega markets and the chains that vend fast food. After all, it is the adolescents who are perhaps the biggest customer group for such products. So why not bring the mountain to Mohammad? However, there is an almost equally passionate contrary view too. I am inclined to be at par with the latter view.
As it is the student of today is distracted by the mother of gadgets that he/she carries , the omnipresent smart phone. Now to bring his other two banes, fast food and brands at his doorstep could prove disastrous. Obesity in the young is already a major global concern and it goes without saying that fast food and sedentary lifestyle are its main causes.
Similarly the availability of all the goodies that supermarkets offer may spark off a race of one-upmanship and may nudge an already spendthrift generation into worse maladies.
However there is a flip side too. Be it the mammoth departmental stores or food shops, they are all situated with a stone’s throw from many a school. So even if we keep them at bay by not inviting them indoors, the wolves are at the door. All our young children have to do is to step out. Thus there is some merit in letting them in willingly because that way they would at least be under the direct scrutiny of the school administration. Also the schools can make a cool packet from sharing their profits and use that money for the benefits of their wards.
Still I reckon that it is better if we let our alma maters not be markets but temples of education.
285 words
Some people argue that fast food chains and supermarkets can promote their products to schools and that schools benefit from it. Is it a positive or negative development?
...........................................................................................................................
A strong opinion is gaining ground that schools are a natural sales outlet for mega markets and the chains that vend fast food. After all, it is the adolescents who are perhaps the biggest customer group for such products. So why not bring the mountain to Mohammad? However, there is an almost equally passionate contrary view too. I am inclined to be at par with the latter view.
As it is the student of today is distracted by the mother of gadgets that he/she carries , the omnipresent smart phone. Now to bring his other two banes, fast food and brands at his doorstep could prove disastrous. Obesity in the young is already a major global concern and it goes without saying that fast food and sedentary lifestyle are its main causes.
Similarly the availability of all the goodies that supermarkets offer may spark off a race of one-upmanship and may nudge an already spendthrift generation into worse maladies.
However there is a flip side too. Be it the mammoth departmental stores or food shops, they are all situated with a stone’s throw from many a school. So even if we keep them at bay by not inviting them indoors, the wolves are at the door. All our young children have to do is to step out. Thus there is some merit in letting them in willingly because that way they would at least be under the direct scrutiny of the school administration. Also the schools can make a cool packet from sharing their profits and use that money for the benefits of their wards.
Still I reckon that it is better if we let our alma maters not be markets but temples of education.
285 words