Going out to eat during lunch is a great privilege for seniors, right. Let’s see if it really worth it. The administrators of West Ottawa High School allow this privilege to the Seniors each year as a “college ready skill”. Mr. Tulgetske explained “This privilege is not only a college ready skill, but a good way to help student learn to manage their time.”

Check this out,

The amount of calories one person is supposed to consume at the average weight of 130-160 lbs is about 1,200 calories a day.

At McDonald’s, one meal alone comes just short that point, and still usually doesn’t seem to fill people for hours until the next meal.

A Double Cheeseburger meal (Med. Fries& Med. Drink) alone is about 1,152 calories, roughly. That’s only 50 calories away from meeting the whole day’s requirements worth in just one meal.

Want a healthier option? Let’s look at their salads. Today you’re in the mood for a Bacon Ranch tossed Salad. You order the salad with your favorite ranch dressing, and you need a medium coke to go with that of course, all of those add up to be 722 calories. That’s over half as much as you need in one small meal.

I conducted the average of gas money spent when going out to McDonalds every week. ⅘ students in West Ottawa will spend near $17 a week in gas alone going out for lunch. There’s about 35 weeks in a school year, so if you add it up, you’ll spend an average of $559 on gas alone in a school year just to go back and forth to lunch. This is only if you’re going out 2-3 times a week.

Of course these numbers vary depending on the mileage and prices, but the is a rough average.

We haven’t even talked about the cost of food. One lunch at WO is $3. There’s 175 days of school in a year. A student (who pays for lunch each day) will spend $525 a year in food in the school’s cafeteria.

Let’s go back to the Double Cheeseburger that you ordered with the Med. Fries and a Med. Coke. That meal is $6.69 plus tax. If you go to McDonalds and get this meal 3 times a week you spend 20.07 plus tax each week. But this is only if you eat three days a week. If you go to McDonalds three days a week, you still have 2 school days left. We said the lunches at WO cost $3, right.

Well if you wanted lunch for those last two days that you didn’t go out, you would spend $26.07 on food all week. You need to go back and forth to McDonalds, so that gas would be about $17 a week. You would spend $43.07 a week to go back and forth to McDonalds ⅗ days a week and eat ⅖ days at school. In an entire school year (175 days) you could end up spending $1,507.45. However, this doesn’t ensure complete justice for WO’s cafeteria. $525 a year is still a huge number for the average student.

If you still ate school lunches at WO without going out you would save $982.45. This is enough to buy that used car you’ve always dreamed of having, or even a new laptop to do your homework on. Maybe if you had this money in your pocket you wouldn’t have to ask your parents to pay your phone bill this month.

This isn’t targeting any group of people specifically because we all do it, and that’s fine. It’s all your decision, so eat as you please. Let this key be your pros and cons list when you want to go get that burger for lunch tomorrow.