Students’ eyes hungrily search for overflowing boxes of snacks, chips, and a variety of junk food; even boxes of chocolate.

Everyone all over campus at some point has craved something more than the average school food, which slowly has lost most of it’s best attributes.

Not surprisingly, evidence of a black market of fast food and sugary drinks has filled the trash cans around Akins at the end of each day.

These foods and drinks have not been officially sold on campus, because the state banned their sale on high school campuses about 10 years ago.

However, somehow students find ways to either bring these banned items with them from home or they have a senior friend who will bring lunch back with them when they go off campus.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has recognized that it is impossible to completely restrict access to french fries and soda and is proposing lifting the ban on deep-fat fryers and soda in vending machines.

The Agriculture Commission is currently reviewing comments from the public about the proposal and could implement the changes as soon as the next school year.

Miller isn’t forcing any schools to implement the machines, it is up to each individual school district throughout Texas to decide if they want to or not.

In doing so, he is promoting more local control and less state regulation, and so french fries and Coca-Cola might not start showing up in the cafeteria right away, or at all.

Furthormore, parents play a big role in the lives of their children, and their children don’t have to eat food provided by the school if parents deem it too unhealthy for them.

The current ban is simply not effective at stopping obesity.

But students should be able to eat what they like, and therefore the school should provide the resources for them.

Nearly one decade ago, Texas lawmakers decided to fight childhood obesity with a ban on deep fryers and soda machines. Now, the Texas Department of Agriculture is trying to repeal this ban and increase the amount of junk food fundraiser days by six times.

With a childhood obesity rate of over 36 percent, Texas holds the title of fifth highest childhood obesity in the United States. This problem will not be solved by increasing the amount of fats added to the diets of public school children.

While Sid Miller, the Agricultural Commissioner, stated that the regulation change is not required, that does not mean schools will not change to use the deep fryers. While school administrators are focused on educating the future generation, they also have to watch their bottom line while stretching the dollars they are given. One sad truth is that unhealthy food cooked in deep fryers is cheaper to make than the healthier alternatives, making it difficult for cash strapped schools to afford a healthy lunch.

If the state repeals the ban and soda machines and deep fryers return to schools, we will see a major increase of childhood obesity. As obesity in high school has increased by two percent between 2005 and 2013 with the ban of these unhealthy alternatives, just imagine the jump that will happen when sugary and fried food is more readily available on campuses.

One high schooler who filed a complaint on the proposal, told Miller that the state should look into a more traditional way to feed the students in public schools.

While many students complain about the taste of school lunches and say that this repeal may help them taste better, many adults say how it is better to have a healthy lunch. There is a way to have a healthy, but still tasty school lunch, and repealing the ban on deep fryers and soda machines is not the way to do it.