While I was a senior in high school, I was required to take a Citizenship class. In hindsight, that is a very strange thing to name a class that students are forced to take in their final year of schooling before being set free into the “real world.” Citizenship class? Was I supposed to be learning to be a good citizen? We had a series of guest speakers come into the class to lecture on various topics. Representatives from the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian parties came,
One of the few points that I really remember three and half years later came at the start of class one day. We had no guest speaker that day, but the teacher was joking with the students about some of the food choices we had made during our lunch break. This teacher had a way of getting students engaged and forcing us to think, even if it was in a potentially controversial way. On this day, one student bought some coffee to drink from the cafeteria during lunch. The teacher asked how we all felt that the school was selling us drugs. Caffeine was being pumped into our little blood streams for just three dollars or less every day, a legal drug that surrounds us in some of my favorite drinks. I never thought of caffeine as a drug, or in that way. It was an extreme viewpoint, but it sparked some interesting thoughts.
The teacher then went on to comment on how most people seem to worry more about what they put into their cars than what they put into their bodies. That line in particular struck a chord with me and I often think about that when filling up my gas tank. I’m not one for fast food, and just because it is cheap and easy does not mean it is the best choice for me. The same goes for gasoline I put into my car, but I worry far less about things like that. It seems to be the opposite for most people. I still wonder why that is.
Freeman, Andrea. "Fast Food: Oppression Through Poor Nutrition." California Law Review Dec2007, Vol. 95 Issue 6, p2221-2259, 39p
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