Flamin' Hot Cheetos Addictive? Chips Targeted by School Districts
A popular snack food is the target of school districts in several states over accusations that the snack is hazardous for kids to eat.
School districts in California and New Mexico are attempting to ban the popular snack food Flamin' Hot Cheetos over concerns that the snack is extremely unhealthy for kids.
School officials claim that the snack has a minuscule amount of nutritional value and should not be offered to kids while they are in school.
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The problem school officials state is that the one bag of chips contains four servings, and are concerned that kids would eat the entire bag not knowing the actual amount of fat and calories they are consuming.
One bag of Cheetos contains 44 grams of fat and nearly 700 calories.
One school district in Illinois used to sell about 150,000 bags each year, but deicided to stop providing the chips and have already taken the snack off its menu, according to reports from ABC.
"If children were to bring in snacks that are high in fat, high in calories, that's their choice," Rockford School District Interim Superintendent Robert Willis told KTLA. "We're not going to be providing those kinds of foods."
The amount of fat and calories is close to, if not more than, what new USDA school lunch guidelines call for. For example, kids in kindergarten through fifth grade are allowed a maximum of up to 650 calories, children in sixth through eighth grade are allowed 700 calories and the caloric intake for high school kids is capped at 850.
"I ate them every day, even for breakfast, and I got really big. There were days when, if my mother didn't buy them for me, I would get so mad. … It took me three months to quit." Lake View High School senior Abigail Hernandez told the Chicago Tribune.
