I heard about 20 minutes' worth of today's Diane Rehm show about childhood obesity on NPR. The program was motivated by Bill Clinton's recent deal with the soft drink industry to ban sales of some soft drinks in schools.
The plan will be implemented by 2009, and will include the following provisions:
- No sugared carbonated beverages
- No full-fat milk or chocolate milk
- No artificially sweetened fruit juice
- No sports drinks at elementary/middle school level
Of course, this still leaves plenty of unhealthy options at both elementary and middle schools, as well as in high school. There are no restrictions on candy or other junk food, and no efforts to improve the quality of school lunches themselves. And highschoolers can still fill up on calorific sports drinks and fruit juice, little better than soda pop.
But, as guests Margo Wootan and Susan Lynch point out, this is a start. Wootan works for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which has just completed a national survey of school food policy where each state's policy was graded from A to F. Only one state, Kentucky, rated as high as an A minus, and two-thirds of all states rated D or below, with most of those states getting an F.
The CSPI argues that simply improving the healthfulness of available snacks in schools will make a significant dent in childhood obesity. (Here's a link to a 2004 report where they document the vast array of junk food sold in today's schools.)
Not selling junk food in public schools seems like common sense, yet it appears that achieving that goal is elusive -- as was pointed out on the show, beverage and other food vending corporations weasel their way in to schools by offering "donations" to the school's operating budget.
But if the junk food is harmful to kids, why should we allow it in the schools? If porn companies made donations, would we allow x-rated video booths in the library?
Here's a link to a CogDaily report on the economics of kids' food purchase decisions. This, of course, brings up another question: Why are parents giving their kids money to buy junk food in the first place?
- Log in to post comments
Hooray, Kentucky got a high mark for something in education!!
The ban is a nice thought, but a trip through the nutritional labels on all those drinks will tell you why it's misguided. All fruit juice is sugary. Why does it matter if it's artificially sweetened or not? Even 100% juice is sugary - and that 100% can be misleading. A casual survey of juice available in the grocery store will show you that juices whice are 100% juice, but which are a blend of juices, are essentially just sugar water and aren't even fortified with vitamin C. The sugar is fructose, not sucrose, but it has the same nubmer of calories. Even if they are fortified with vitamins, a piece of fruit has more nutritional value and fewer calories than juice. There can be as many calories in a serving of juice as there are in a serving of soda. So - high calorie soda is banned, but high calorie juice is allowed. Move down to the sports drink aisle, and you find that sports drinks are _much_ lower in calories than both juice and soda. So - high calorie fruit juices are allowed, but low calorie sports drinks are not.
I couldn't agree more, Frumious. A lot of kids fatten up on fruit juice, most of which have little nutritional value. Ever looked at the label on unfortified grape or apple juice? You might as well just inject sugar into your veins.
But these things are all compromises, and this one's a semi-reasonable start.
My biggest gripe with school food policy (which I mention in the linked article) is the way kids are given debit accounts to pay for lunches. They can load up on Jell-o and chocolate milk, and the parent is stuck with the bill. There is no way to opt out, because the cafeteria isn't ever going to let your kid go "hungry," even though for 90 percent of America, hunger's not the problem.
It's instructive to view this debate from a cross-cultural perspective. What do schools in other countries do? In Japan, for example, there are no vending machines in schools. In fact, Japanese people are very surprised to learn that they exist in American schools.
But the real issue goes beyond vending machines and fast food infiltration of schools. These things are built around the idea that kids should have a choice in what they eat at school. From elementary school on up, kids can choose to bring lunch from home or choose from what is offered in their cafeterias. Given a choice between something healthy and pizza, what do you think a kid will choose? In Japan, school lunches are carefully planned by nutritionists, and all children eat the same healthy lunch. No complaints, and very few fat kids.
We might start to really make "a start" if we ask: what are we gaining by letting our children choose? do the benefits of giving children choices outweigh (no pun intended) the inevitable result?
I am so tired of parents searching for someone to blame for the obesity in their children. As parents we have the responsibility to nourish our children in a healthy way. We know that those who eat at fast food establishments two or more times a week are twice as likely to be obese, yet we pretend we are so busy that we have to pick up a kids meal for our children.
Psychologists tell us that children learn how to behave by modeling our behavior, and see our actions more than words. Currently 78.2 percent of men aged 40 to 59 in the United States are overweight or obese. Instead of searching for a reason to blame someone else for our childrens extra pounds, we need to look in the mirror first!
Lynne Eldridge M.D.
Author, "Avoiding Cancer One Day At A Time, Practical Advice for Preventing Cancer"
http://www.avoidcancernow.com