Unpopular Opinion

A massive contributor to obesity is the cost of healthy food versus non healthy food.

While I agree that everyone should have at least some understanding of cooking, the problem of obesity isn't directly related to knowing how to cook. It has far more to do with the accessibility of certain types of food in a given community. The horribly unhealthy food is often a fraction of the cost of fresh, healthy food. It's not necessarily the case that don't know/want to cook their own healthy meals, it's that they literally can't afford to do so.

There is a reason they intentionally do not teach basic life skills in school. Just like they do not teach you about money, taxes and finance.

I took home economics, learned about cooking and sewing. 10/10, would recommend.

This used to be taught as part of "home economics". What we really need is a massive update to that class, which lives up to its name and covers:

1. nutritional food purchasing - how to get food nutrition on a rock-bottom budget

2. yes, how to prepare nutritious meals using the most affordable ingredients (how to properly prepare rice, and dry beans), how to follow a recipe, and the fundamentals of cooking: (how to make cheap cuts of meat edible and delicious, Why different cooking methods work in some cases, not in others)

3. financial literacy that is up to date, and explains how the entire credit system is a dangerous trap, and how to use it safely. How and why to open credit union (not bank) accounts. How to file taxes for free, and what to actually expect for take-home pay after taxes for various incomes and situations.

4. realistic budgeting for success. Kids need to understand that they need to expect shared living situations for most of their adult life.

5. actual ROI of college when loans are factored in

... separate from this we also need civics class to that includes some fundamentals that are usually only taught to first year law students: how contracts work, what negligence is, what's The first amendment is and what it isn't. And how to interact with cops to protect yourself.

Civics class should also include technical walkthroughs of how to register to vote, and how to do the actual voting, and how to use absentee ballots.

Civics class should also include lessons on how to find ORIGINAL sources to gather information about which candidates to vote for, and how to choose media and fact checkers by whether those media and fact checkers accurately represent the content of the original sources.

Civics class should also tell students the technical processes of how they can run for office, and what offices are available to them at the local level.

Cooking class was mandatory in my school in the 90s. We learned how to make muffins from scratch, some basic (and I mean very basic) meals, and some basic home cleaning. It was better than nothing, but I was able to see who had never been shown any of it before. I had grew up cooking for myself, and I was expected to help with dishes. So none of it was that new to me. But some of the kids had never touched unprepared food before. Some had never washed a dish before. It was obvious which ones were going to grow up still not knowing how to cook for themselves beyond microwave meals and takeout.

A single course isn't going to do much to help guide a kid into being a healthy adult. Basic life skills should be a graduated course in every single year of grade school. It's the only way to engrain it into everyday life.

here in germany it was mandatory and they did force me to cook and eat things i didn't eat. I'm vegetarian but they tried to force me to eat and cook it. i also don't eat specific other things because i hate their taste and they forced me to eat this bs.

fuck this "mandatory" courses. it's not helping to live healthy. it's forcing children to do stuff they don't want to do and gives them bad grades for it. i got bad grades just because i was vegetarian and didn't eat meat. fuck this.

each week when we had cooking class it was a nightmare for me. i always jad to explain myself again and again to everyone. why I don't eat meat. what my ethics and morals are. ever fucking week. and in the end they have me bad grades even after cooking their bs recipes. i just didn't eat them. because obvious reasons. fuck this mandatory courses.

If you make it mandatory, you have to accommodate every student's dietary requirements.

That sounds nice but misses the point of the problem. See the posts about food costs in this thread for one. Another issue is that schools here are woefully underfunded. When you can barely fix the roof, mitigate mold, buy textbooks for core classes, afford to let teachers use the copy machines or have enough basic office supplies, etc, etc, etc, cooking classes and their facilities/materials costs are kind of a (possibly lead) pipe dream. But lets face it, if schools did get funded to the level they deserved too many parents would simply make sure that money got redirected towards the school's football team.

They are, all kids do Food Technology in Secondary School in the UK, where we learn to cook various things.

I agree that they should also be mandatory in other countries, cooking is one of those things everyone needs to learn, and if their parents are too lazy to teach them, schools must step in.