September 2005

Editor's Note:
In this special back-to-school issue, Informed Eating reports on the good, the bad, and the ugly. In good news, many states are making progress towards setting stronger school-based nutrition policies. In bad news, junk food companies such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are sending health curricula into schools all over the country. And ugly best describes the American Beverage Association’s new school “policy.” But overall, the news is encouraging that the grassroots movement to improve school food is gaining ground.

Special Back-to-School Report

Government Discovers that Schools Sell Junk Food

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, released a report with the unsurprising title of “School Meal Programs: Competitive Foods Are Widely Available and Generate Substantial Revenues for Schools. Competitive foods is the official term for all food sold outside the school meal program because they compete with the meal sales. In other words, too many children are eating their lunches out of vending machines. The report found that nearly 9 out of 10 schools sold competitive foods during the 2003-2004 school year. Schools often sold these foods in or near the cafeteria and during lunch; the foods available ranged from fruit and milk to soda and candy. High and middle schools were more likely to sell competitive foods than elementary schools. Many schools, particularly high schools and middle schools, generated substantial revenues through competitive food sales. Specifically, the nearly 30 percent of high schools generating the most revenue from these sales raised more than $125,000 per school

Read the full report:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05563.pdf

Fast Food Clusters Near Schools

Fast-food restaurants are clustered within easy walking distance of elementary and high schools, according to a new study by Harvard's School of Public Health published in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Nearly 80% of Chicago schools studied had at least one fast-food restaurant within a half mile. Statistical mapping techniques showed there were at least three times more fast-food restaurants located less than a mile from schools than would be expected if the restaurants had been more randomly distributed, the researchers said. Previous studies have shown that on a typical day, almost one-third of U.S. youngsters eat fast food, and that when they do, they consume more calories, fats and sugars and fewer fruits and vegetables than on days when they don't eat fast food, according to the researchers.

"We know that a great deal of thought and planning goes into fast-food restaurant site location," and that children "are very important to the market," said lead author Bryn Austin, a researcher at Harvard and Children's Hospital Boston. McDonald's spokesman Walt Riker said the fast-food giant locates its restaurants "in high-traffic areas like every other business, to serve customers. It has nothing to do with schools." Chicago's public schools are among districts that have eliminated junk-food and soft drinks from campus vending machines in an effort to tackle the problem, but the researchers said the clustering of fast-food restaurants near schools may be undermining those efforts.

Source: Wall Street Journal, 08/23/05

School Nutrition Bills Round-Up

According to an analysis conducted by Informed Eating, from 2003-2005, 45 states introduced 287 bills related to the sale of soft drinks and junk food in public schools. (Many bills also contained other provisions). Only 21 states were successful in passing any bill, and only 31 bills out of the 287 were enacted. Of these 31 bills, often, what would have been a stronger, more restrictive bill, wound up being a weaker, watered-down version. As readers of Informed Eating know full well, Coca-Cola lobbied recently in states such as Connecticut, where a strong bill was vetoed by the governor, and Arizona, where high schools were made exempt. 

In some states, nutrition standards are being set via rule-making procedures conducted outside of legislative politics. For example, regulations have recently become law in New Jersey - to be fully phased in by September 2007 - that will ban soda, candy, and other foods from almost all school cafeterias, pre-kindergarten to high school. These regulations are slated to be among the strongest in the nation. Another state taking a similar route is Maine, where the Department of Education has approved rules to get all soda and other “foods of minimal nutritional value” out of schools, “24/7”, as opposed to just during the lunch period, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires. Maine also recently passed a bill to develop stronger standards on school food, as well as require nutrition labeling of school meal “a la carte” items. All of these rules apply K-12.

Also, in Kentucky, the Board of Education committee (established by the bill passed in March) went further than the legislature. While the enacted law only banned soda in elementary schools, the board recently approved a rule to not allow regular soda K-12. These examples represent an encouraging trend towards state legislatures deferring the job of setting nutrition standards to a committee where, while compromises are still being made, the politics are less contentious. Other states where similar committee deliberations are currently underway include Arkansas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Stay tuned!

California Passes Strong School Bills

After years of being a leader in the nationwide movement to improve school nutrition, California is once again at the forefront. Three important bills were just signed by the state’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. One bill sets nutrition standards on all food sold on school campuses and another restricts the types of beverages that can be sold on high school campuses. Two years ago, the state passed a beverage bill but high schools were made exempt, thanks to heavy lobbying by the soft drink industry. But this time around, with the soda bill being sponsored by the governor’s office, lawmakers had a more difficult time bowing to industry lobbying. A third bill allocates $18.2 million for fresh fruit and vegetables to school breakfast programs. Congratulations to the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, California Food Policy Advocates, and all the other groups who have worked so hard over the years.

Sources: California Center for Public Health Advocacy
www.publichealthadvocacy.org/limits/index.html
Los Angeles Times, 09/07/05
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/kids/la-me-junkfood7sep07,1,7516326.story?coll=la-health-kids
San Francsico Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/09/16/OBESITY.TMP  

France Bans School Vending

Not bothering with setting nutrition standards, France has taken a cleaner approach to junk food in schools: Just get rid of the 8,000 machines throughout the country altogether. Schools have been disabling machines for the last few months to comply with the new law, which was originally passed last year. In June, some French lawmakers tried to amend the rule to allow machines to provide healthy alternatives that could be given prior approval. Those proposals were rejected as industry lobbying. Some schools have been installing drinking fountains to supply refrigerated water for students. France's governmental food standards body supported the ban as part of wider measures to improve the nutritional value of school meals. (Editor’s note: Why does having the USDA support such a national policy seem as unlikely as American public schools providing free, clean drinking water to all students instead of Coke’s branded Dasani?) 

Source: BeverageDaily.com, 09/02/05
http://www.beveragedaily.com/news/news-ng.asp?n=62247-france-vending-machines-obesity

Soda Industry Publicity Stunt

Move over Big Tobacco, you've got competition in the Shameless PR award category. With much fanfare, last month the American Beverage Association (the trade group formerly known as the National Soft Drink Association) announced a new school-based policy "aimed at providing lower calorie and/or nutritious beverages to schools and limiting the availability of soft drinks." But don’t let the PR spin that the industry wants to be “part of the solution” fool you. That the ABA made their big announcement at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures was both calculated and ironic, since the group's members have been lobbying against state bills to improve school nutrition for years. ABA's real purpose is to ward off future efforts to enact stronger laws.

Moreover, PR giant Porter Novelli is working with the ABA to promote the policy. According to PR Week, Porter Novelli "will assist [ABA] in talking about the new policy with educators, parents, legislators, regulators, and other groups interested in school nutrition issues." The ABA has already run full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today publicizing its new policy. Porter Novelli also worked on developing the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid.

Read Michele Simon’s article on Alternet:
Big Soda’s Publicity Stunt
http://alternet.org/story/24647/
Read CIFC’s press release with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:
Advocates Call New School Beverage Policy a PR Stunt
www.commercialexploitation.com/pressreleases/abapolicy.htm
American Beverage Association press release:
http://www.ameribev.org/pressroom/2005_vending.asp
PR Week, 08/29/05

Big Food’s “Health Education” 

As children head back to school, teachers and parents should be wary of the latest trend in education: corporate-sponsored health curricula. And not from just any corporations, but the same ones that helped contribute to rising childhood obesity rates in the first place. Such programs sponsored by the likes of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola accomplish two crucial goals for food companies: polishing their tarnished image while keeping their names in front of impressionable youngsters -- to brand them for life. When it comes to educating our children about good nutrition, the last people we should rely on are companies marketing unhealthy products.

Read Michele Simon’s recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/09/07/EDGH4EJB7U1.DTL

Upcoming Events

3^rd Annual Conference on Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic
Boston, September 23-25

The Public Health Advocacy Institute convenes its 3^rd annual conference, Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic, September 23 – 25 at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. This year's conference will focus on childhood obesity. Topics include: litigation, marketing to children, school vending contracts, and the tension between public health and industry goals. CIFC’s Michele Simon will be speaking on state legislation.

For details visit: http://www.phaionline.org/events_obesity2005.php

Food Marketing to Children and the Law
Los Angeles, October 21

Join us for a symposium on “Food Marketing to Children and the Law,” co-sponsored by the Center for Informed Food Choices and Loyola Law School. The event promises a provocative discussion on how to apply the law to effectively curb junk food marketing to kids. Speakers include Susan Linn, author of "Consuming Kids," legal scholars Angela Campbell of Georgetown, Ellen Fried of Yale, and Tracy Westen, FTC deputy director during the late 1970s, who will offer a unique historical perspective. The event is free and open to the public

For complete details, visit: http://www.informedeating.org/events.html

Radio Interview on Big Food

On September 8, CIFC’s Michele Simon was interviewed on WBAI’s program, Healthstyles, in New York City. The 30-minute segment covered topics such as the recent Federal Trade Commission meeting on food marketing and childhood obesity and the food industry’s attempt to shield itself from legal liability.

http://www.informedeating.org/resources.html

The Center for Informed Food Choices in a nonprofit organization that advocates for a whole foods, plant-based diet and educates about the politics of food.

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2005 Informed Eating  -  All Rights Reserved