Last week, Congress declared that pizza is a vegetable. It passed the new agricultural spending bill on Tuesday, which stated that the scant amount of tomato paste on a frozen pizza contains enough vegetables to count as a serving in a school lunch. Obesity is a huge problem in America, and, with the passage of this bill, Congress shows how little it cares about children’s health.

    One out of three children in the U.S. is overweight or obese. That is unacceptable. Having an overweight populace is something that this country is going to have to continue dealing with for decades, but we shouldn’t let our faults pass on to the next generation.

    Being overweight causes all kinds of issues for the entire population. I personally wouldn’t care if people were overweight, but when our population is as overweight as it is, it causes problems. People who are overweight or obese are more likely to have heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. We are all going to have to pay for those healthcare costs, because having so many sick people drives up premiums.

    At this point, I’m resigned to the fact that we won’t be able to change adults’ lifestyle. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t try to instill better eating habits in younger people. Letting Congress declare pizza a vegetable is the absolute opposite direction from the one we need to be taking. What we need are healthier lunches and healthier options for students. That needs to be backed up at home, with parents who try to instill their kids with an understanding of the importance of eating correctly.

    The Obama administration tried to do just that, which is what started the whole “pizza is a vegetable” thing in the first place. They tried to propose new rules for school lunches that would have made them healthier, if slightly more expensive (about 14 cents per lunch according to the Department of Agriculture).

    The food industry did not like those new rules. School meals that are subsidized by the federal government require a certain amount of vegetables, and if the USDA’s new rules had gone through, it would have made business a lot more difficult. So, in response, they started lobbying. Businesses like ConAgra and groups like the American Frozen Food Institute spent approximately $5.6 million to make sure that pizza could be a vegetable.

    Think about your younger siblings or cousins who are in elementary school right now. Don’t they deserve a life in which they don’t have a higher risk for life-threatening diseases? Don’t they deserve a chance at a healthy lifestyle? Once people get set in their ways, it is incredibly difficult to change those habits.

    The habits of eating correctly get started when we are young. They are informed by what food we have access to and what kind of culture we have. What kids need are healthier school lunches, and their parents should be willing to pay more for them, because what they are paying for is their children’s future.

    When Congress declares pizza a vegetable, they are showing how little they care about the country’s future, how little they care about the health of children when compared to a slightly more expensive school lunch. How much more they care about the lobbying from the food industry than they do about their constituents.

    Pizza is not a vegetable. It never will be. No matter how many laws Congress passes, the amount of tomato sauce on a pizza will never make it healthy. We need a healthier country, but if Congress doesn’t want to try to make a healthier America, then I guess it is up to us to do it.

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