[Letters]Our awful school meals

As a high school student, I feel that many schools, including my own, are getting worse. Most of the schools have raised the price of meals, but their quality and quantity are seriously bad.

For example, my own high school’s food is very bad. In this school, in the past, many parents used to visit the school to check up on the meals served to their children. But they haven’t come to inspect them for months now.

Moreover, facilities for providing meals are getting worse, making students complain about their meals. I interviewed Park Mi-jeong, a Gimpo Foreign Language High School student, who said, “I pay lots of money for my school lunch, but they don’t give me nutritious food. Because I eat the food in this school every day, the school lunch is very important to me as well as to my friends.” Even the teachers are dissatisfied with their school lunch. Hoe Jae-young, a teacher, said, “I just hope the food provider is changed. It is really terrible.”

In the Yeongnam area - Busan, Ulsan and Daegu - the situation is more serious. In this area, 2.2 percent of the students don’t eat their school lunch. Kim Jeong-suk, the representative of the Busan Citizen Campaign for Safe School Lunches, said, “We place the responsibility for our growing children’s health and nutrition on the school. School lunches deserve better attention.”

High school students pay 100,000 won ($64.59) each month for their school meals. However, their lunch menu is very light and insufficient for teenagers.

Although many people know the situation of school lunches is troubling and that food is very important for the youth, the government can’t seem to find the right solution for this problem.

Lee Soo-jin, student

Gimpo Foreign Language High School