Do you know the nutritional value of a hamburger from a fast food restaurant? Do you care?

In a city such as Coppell where there is an array of fast food restaurants, questions like these are reasonable to ask any teen or resident. Whether or not it’s reasonable to think they’d have an answer is a different story.

Restaurants are required to provide the nutritional values for items on their menu but it’s pretty safe to say that most teenagers aren’t paying too much attention to how many calories or grams of saturated fat they’re actually eating. It’s not only what teens are eating affecting them but also the amount of physical activity.  The combination of unhealthy eating habits and lack of activity can severely affect the health of a teenager.

Students may not be getting the exercise they need to be eating fast food three days a week, and while students involved in sports are active, athletes still need to watch what they eat.

“During the season, I have to watch what I eat to stay within a certain weight range so fast food isn’t recommended,” junior and wrestler Lorena Ramirez said.

 Various fast food restaurants in Coppell such as Sonic and Wendy’s are popular hang outs for teens. At Wendy’s, buying a hamburger, medium fries and beverage can equal to about half of the recommended calorie intake of 2000. Factor that in with the limited exercise some students are getting and the results can be less than satisfactory.

 In a 2009 article in the New York Times, a study conducted by Columbia University and the University of California showed students going to schools located near fast food restaurants are more prone to be obese. It’s not only the taste of the food bringing kids and families back for more, but also the proximity of the restaurants to places where there is a large amount of people.

 Just when it was thought that high schools couldn’t get any closer to fast food, many schools now serve fast food in the cafeteria. At Coppell High School, Cici’s pizza and Chick-fil-A are common food items eaten by the students.

But how much attention should students actually be paying attention to what they eat?

 Though the amount of calories in a burger or piece of pizza someone eats is important, what’s in the food matters as well.

 “Teens and children should focus more on eating healthy and staying active,” biology and anatomy teacher Jodie Deinhammer said. “It’s not all about reading labels but eating more natural and less processed foods.”

While natural foods are grown without chemical fertilizers, processed foods are manufactured with artificial ingredients. They may taste good, but processed foods are of little nutritional value to those that eat them and often contain more amounts of fat than their natural counterpart.

Not only should grams of fat be taken in to account when deciding what to eat, there are also food additives that are used to add flavor to food. There are some food additives such as MSG and caffeine that can be extremely dangerous for someone that consumes it.

Even though students feel like they can eat what they want right now, there are important factors to be considered when it comes to what they eat.