The school foods reform movement sweeping across the country has reached the nation’s capital. A new bipartisan bill was introduced yesterday that calls on the U.S. Agriculture Department to update its nutrition standards for foods sold on school grounds.
The bill would amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to update the decades-old definition of “food of minimal nutritional value” to conform to current nutrition science, thereby improving the nutritional quality of foods sold at schools. The bill, introduced in both houses of Congress, also aims to protect the federal investment in the national school lunch and breakfast programs, which requires that school meals meet science-based nutritional standards.
The new act, called the “Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2006,” calls for the revised definition to encompass foods sold outside the school meal program—including vending machines and school stores—on the school campus and at any time during the school day.
According to a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office, 83% of elementary schools, 97% of middle schools and 99% of high schools sell foods out of vending machines and school stores.
The bill was introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin, (D-Iowa), Sen. Lisa Murkowski, (R-Alaska), Rep. Christopher Shays, (R-CT) and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, (D-CA). The bill was cosponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sen. Dick Durvin (D-IL), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sen. Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI).
“Many American kids are at school for two meals a day. But instead of a nutritious school breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria, they are enticed to eat Cheetos and a Snickers Bar from the vending machines in the hallway,” Harkin said yesterday in a statement. “Junk food sales in schools are out of control. It undercuts our investment in school meal programs, and steers kids toward a future of obesity and diet-related disease. Congress cannot stand idly by while our kids are preyed upon by junk-food marketers.”
The legislation is supported by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the American Medical Association, the national Parent Teacher Association, the School Nutrition Association, and other child health advocacy organizations, the legislators said.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), which represents the world’s leading branded food, beverage and consumer products companies, is taking time to look at the proposed legislation before making any comments, said Stephanie Childs, a GMA spokesperson.
Officials at The American Beverage Association could not be reached for comment.
Gary Ruskin, the executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization that works to prevent commercialism from exploiting children, applauded the introduction of the bill.
“Our children are suffering from an obesity epidemic, but federal laws governing the sale of food in schools are a junk food manufacturer’s dream,” Ruskin said in a statement. “If Congress cares about children it will swiftly turn this bill into law.”
Ruskin said the current definition of food of minimal nutritional value (which was updated by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1979) is extremely narrow, including only sodas, water ices, chewing gum and candy made mostly of sugar.
In a 2004 study, the CSPI found that in both middle and high schools, 75% of beverage options and 85% of snacks were of poor nutritional quality. The most prevalent options were soda, imitation fruit juices, candy, chips, cookies, and snack cakes.
“The high prevalence of junk food in school vending machines does not support students’ ability to make healthy food choices or parents’ ability to feed their children well,” the study found.
If the new bill passes, the legislation would take effect at the beginning of the school year following the date the regulations are finalized, unless its passed 60 days before the beginning of the school year, which would push the effective date to the following school year.
Marketers spent about $15 billion on marketing to kids in 2004, more than double the $7 billion spent in 1994, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
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