Should the Sale of Junk Food in School Canteens be banned?

Junk food is the term that used to describe the food that is to be unhealthy and have low nutritional value. It is being blamed for the increase in childhood obesity (Smith 2005). Based on the statistics from the Health Foundation, (2005) it shows that most of the snack foods such as chips, soft drinks, hamburgers, instant noodles, confectionery and cookies are categorized under foods that have low nutritional values. So, I strongly believed that the sale of junk food in school canteens should be banned as it brings more disadvantages rather than the advantages. Some of the reasons to support the banned in selling the junk foods are as it leads to health problems, contributes to behavioural problems and causes litter problems.

Firstly, the junk food is the contributor to the health problems for children in most of the countries. The ingredients in the junk foods mainly consist of chemical additives which may lead to various problems such as hyperactivity and poor concentration in their study (Smith 2005). In addition, junk foods also cause the weight gain disorder. According to Lin Tran (2005), the consumption of chocolate bars and instant noodles raised the kilo joule intake and hence lead to the weight gain. So, the sale of junk food should be banned as it brings more healthy problems.
Secondly, the selling of junk food is the major cause of litter problems in the country. The litter’s problems are bad for our communities’ image and its need a high cost to cleaning it up. According to the Smith (2005), the school’s canteens that have reduced the sale of junk foods have also reduced their litter problems. Hence the schools can spend the money for other maintenance projects that benefit the school rather that spend for the cleaning purposes (The Food Show 2005). From this, again, I strongly believe that the sale of junk food should be banned.


Lastly, one way to improve the students behaviour is by prevent them from having junk food. To do this, the sale of junk food needs to be stopped. From the article of The Food Channel (2005), the Child Psychologist, Caputo said that reducing unhealthy foods in children’s diet can improve their behaviour. The chemical addictives in the junk foods is the factor which generates the behavioural problems. The teacher of Hill Primary School, Green, said that the students became calmer after lunch after the selling of junk food and soft drinks is removed from the school’s canteens. In order to take care of student’s behaviour, the sale of junk food in the school’ canteens should be banned.


The sale of junk food in the school canteens should be banned as it is unhealthy food for health and a major contributor to the litter problems. Not only that, the banning of the selling of the junk food also believable to improve the student’s behaviour. Therefore, the sale of junk food in school canteens should be banned for the sake of all parties especially students.