Snickers and Cokes would be a thing of the past at school cafeterias and vending machines if the Senate approves an ambitious amendment from Senators Harkin (D-IA) and Murkowsky (R-AK). The amendment to the Farm Bill would establish strict federal guidelines limiting the sale of deliciously unhealthy treats brimming with sugar, salt, and fat.
The nutrition standards would allow only plain bottled water and eight-ounce servings of fruit juice or plain or flavored low-fat milk with up to 170 calories to be sold in elementary and middle schools. High school students could also buy diet soda or, in places like school gyms, sports drinks. Other drinks with as many as 66 calories per eight ounces could be sold in high schools, but that threshold would drop to 25 calories per eight-ounce serving in five years.Food for sale would have to be limited in saturated and trans fat and have less than 35 percent sugar. Sodium would be limited, and snacks must have no more than 180 calories per serving for middle and elementary schools and 200 calories for high schools.
The standards would not affect occasional fund-raising projects, like Girl Scout cookie sales.
Although states would not be able to pass stronger restrictions, individual school districts could.
The rules have the support of food and drink manufacturers, including the American Beverage Association, which worked closely on the amendment with Mr. Harkin’s office and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group that has been critical of the food industry.
“This whole effort has momentum because of the variety of interests that have come together who do not usually find agreement,” said Susan Neely, president of the beverage association.
Some parents and nutritionists are angry that states will not be able to enact even tougher limits.
The inclusion of state-level preemption is angering several advocates, but makes the compromise palatable to the industry. Once advocates of local control, the sugar makers are betting that Congress will be less eager than adventurous states to maintain tough regulations that could harm their business.
The amendment’s fate – and that of the larger farm bill – is precariously uncertain. Senate Republican’s derailed the chamber’s last attempt to bring up the farm bill by demanding the right to offer amendments repealing the estate tax and adjusting the alternative minimum tax. Cloture was rejected 55-42. Senate leadership is expected to wedge the Farm Bill back onto the crowded floor schedule for debate early next week.
Effort to Limit Junk Food in Schools Faces Hurdles [NYT]
Write Your Senator
Write Your Representative
PREVIOUSLY: How To Write To Congress
(Photo: Scott Ableman)
More From Consumerist
-
NYC Movie Theaters Fight Back Against Mayor’s Big Soda Ban
-
Lawsuit Seeks To Block New York City Ban On Big Sodas
-
Massachusetts City Considers Ban On Large Sodas At Restaurants
-
Judge Cans Bloomberg’s Large Sugary Drinks Ban, Calling It “Arbitrary And Capricious”
-
NYC Mayor Doesn’t Want You Sipping Your Downsized Sugary Drinks Out Of Styrofoam Cups
I think it’s hysterical that some are so happy about depriving Big Junk Food of its captive market… when *diet soda* is still going to be sold.
Naturally, there’s no marketing muscle behind that stuff.
@Red_Eye: Wow here at my kids school in Georgia they have to follow strict guidelines and the foods is nutritious and tastes like crap. My kid would rather go hungry most days than eat school lunch.
Then improve the lunches! Nutritious does not have to taste like crap. The two are not mutually exclusive.
do not include me into your socio community of ‘we’ or ‘our’ without my consent mmm ok
Ah, the fallacy of individualism. You are part of a community and greater whole. Deal with it.
Dont make choices for me though.
Choices are already made for you. Ever heard of laws?
Guess what, my kid is in the upper percentile for her size and lower percentile for her weight. She is a tall lean machine with a large head and utterly brilliant for a 5 year old reading anything you throw at her and comprehending it.
We’re talking about the net effect, not your kid in particular. I grew up on junk food and turned out fine myself (though I have ADD, who knows if there is a link there?). However, health in America is an epidemic and it is due to poor food choices. We need to do something.
The sad fact is that childhood obesity is an epidemic in our time. And if one way to confront that and fight it is for the government to get corporate sponsored trash out of the school system, I’m all for that. Sure, it would make much more sense to give schools more money so they don’t have to seek corporate sponsorship, but that isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
Yes, there are a lot of people who are responsible parents and do send their kids with good quality food. Guess what? This won’t affect you in any way. But for the millions of children who go to school and buy absolute crap, maybe having no alternative to fresh fruit and vegetables will be a GOOD thing, n’est ce pas?
Sure, everyone bitches and moans about the nanny government and it meddling in everyone’s business, blah blah blah. But above all, the government is there to ensure the well-being of its citizens. And the system that’s grown steadily since the 1980′s, with corporate sponsorship, is doing so MUCH damage that it’s time to make a change. I’d much rather have the government meddling in something like this than starting baseless wars and sending us into astronomical debt.
@FishingCrue: “Generally speaking, how is regulation of sugar in local schools a federal function?”
Probably because domestic sugar generally is massively federally subsidized by tax dollars (and foreign sugar is massively federally tariffed to prevent competition), and school food programs receive federal funding. What part of the process ISN’T already federally controlled?
@supercheap: Part of the reason crap is so much cheaper than whole foods is that the federal government heavily subsidizes the crap. It’s one of the unending ironies of the farm bill is that every year they put a couple million into nutrition education and school curriculums to try to make us less fat, and tout those as the USDA’s major goals, while putting billions into farm subsidies that primary create cheap corn-based sugar and cheap, corn-fed, well-marbled meat.
@dazette: “I just do not think it is Congress’ business to decide what I or my kids can eat.”
Congress is already deciding what you can eat. It is called the farm bill. It provides massive tax dollars to things corporations want you to eat, and completely fails to fund things that Congress claims to want you to eat (like vegetables) but that don’t enrich corporate America. Congress also decides by putting tariffs on many agricultural products that corporate America would prefer we not import (like can sugar) so that domestic HFCS, which is already subsidized to be dramatically cheaper than other sugar forms, has less competition.
I think you should take a moment and appreciate that Congress is, at least a LITTLE BIT, deciding you should eat food that’s good for you rather than good for corporations. Because Congress is ALREADY deciding what you eat; they’re just currently deciding you should eat crap.
It’s a really excellent tactic, by the way, when you can be convinced that attempts to change the law AWAY from corporations’ benefits and FOR the citizenry’s benefit is in fact an attempt by Congress to become a nanny state. Congress is already making all of those decisions FOR you. It’s just that when they do it so that it benefits corporations, corporations spend a lot of time (and money) telling you it’s the “free market” at work, whereas when it benefits YOU, corporates spend a lot of time telling you that the government is restricting your freedom.
You “stop parenting me, Congress!” folks can’t seriously be that naive about agribusiness in this country, can you?
when i was a kid, there were these people called lunch ladies. all while wearing plastic gloves and green shower cap-like things over their hair, they made a crappy pan pizza, braised beef, wax beans and cauldrons of soup. they didn’t unpack boxes of chips, cookies or stock coolers with cases of soda.
wtf??
@jomapivt: we’re already a long, long, way past what you’re talking about, and have been since way before 9/11. You’re basically complaining that they chose red after 9/11, when you never had the choice of color in the first place, but happened to like the blue that was there, before.
@nardo218: fat and calories are very, very good; it’s just the vile part that’s bad. Hydrogenated oils giving those fats, lots of salt, and added sugar and modified starches (what exactly are those?) offering calories are not so good.
If a school served pizza that had under a dozen ingredients, it would not resemble what most of us have known as school pizza. It also wouldn’t offer much in the way of bad nutrition, if any, and would taste better (and be totally full of yummy fat and calories). But, it would not be as cheap a the pizza where the crust alone likely has over fifty ingredients, many not so easy to pronounce, and it would take more effort to prepare.
@thesupreme1: you clearly have no idea what wholesome food is–tofu and portabella peddlers do not go a good job of making a good image for good food. It is sad that Pizza Hut is superior to the school’s lunch food. There are no good reasons (note: I’m not saying there isn’t any reason, just that they do not outweigh the harm) that cafeteria food can’t be just shy of good home made food in quality, removing any appeal for the likes of Pizza Hut and friends.
@DallasDMD:
Then improve the lunches! Nutritious does not have to taste like crap. The two are not mutually exclusive.
No they are not, however the school is not allowed to make changes to the lunches as part of regulations. the menu is set and our school has no choice according to the cafeteria staff, thats fine if the gov wants to feed the unwashed masses food pellets, or over glorified MRE’s don’t expect to see my kid in line.
Ah, the fallacy of individualism. You are part of a community and greater whole. Deal with it. Choices are already made for you. Ever heard of laws?
Yes I have heard of laws. The most unfortunate part of the untied states is the bleeding hearts that say;
“You work hard and made something of yourself and make a good living for your family. Now you cant keep all that because the slack ass to your right doesn’t work, sits on their butt and contributes nothing to society but hungry mouths. They have 10 kids and you must subsidize those children because it would be morally wrong of you to deny those children food.”
No, it wouldn’t, their parents were morally wrong for creating moths they couldn’t feed. Sorry if you dont like that but I dont like the government stealing what i work for so they can be ‘nice’ to others. If I want to give I will.
We’re talking about the net effect, not your kid in particular. I grew up on junk food and turned out fine myself (though I have ADD, who knows if there is a link there?). However, health in America is an epidemic and it is due to poor food choices. We need to do something.
Again here is the community being responsible for the world instead of the individual being responsible for themselves. I grew up on school pizza and burritos (California) and man was it good food and I didn’t go hungry and while I am overweight now I wasn’t in school. Nobody will ever make me fee obligated to care for another’s responsibility. Sorry just not gonna happen. I had a kid, I am responsible for her, I need to educate myself on whats best for her, I need to provide that for her if I want her to thrive and have a better life than I did. Yes poor health is an epidemic, and AFAIAC its a personal responsibility. They can teach it in school all they want, the can provide all the crummy tasting food they want, just dont make it my problem or my fault. I am doing my job as a parent in caring for my child dont make me work two jobs taking care of others kids because they just want to screw.
How did I know this thread was going to turn into a lolbertarian circlejerk.
I think it’s excellent that the government act the nanny in this case. Education isn’t just about the 3 R’s and if the feds can take a step to force kids to eat healthy while in school, I’m all for it.
And for the people droning on about personal liberties and all that jazz, I don’t want to hear any pissing and moaning about ever rising health care costs due to obesity. This is a problem that has ripple effects much beyond some lard ass kid shoving Snickers bars in his face.
No they are not, however the school is not allowed to make changes to the lunches as part of regulations. the menu is set and our school has no choice according to the cafeteria staff, thats fine if the gov wants to feed the unwashed masses food pellets, or over glorified MRE’s don’t expect to see my kid in line.
Then lobby the right people to get the menu changed, or to give the schools freedom to serve lunches compliant with nutritional regulations however they see fit.
Sorry if you dont like that but I dont like the government stealing what i work for so they can be ‘nice’ to others. If I want to give I will.
Thats not really material to the point I’m making about health and nutrition in society.
Again here is the community being responsible for the world instead of the individual being responsible for themselves.
No, the nation should be responsible for itself. The individual is part of the nation as a unit of society and the culture that defines it. We should seek to have the best people in our society, not a mass of overweight, diabetic, and sickly people.
Nobody will ever make me fee obligated to care for another’s responsibility. Sorry just not gonna happen.
Selfishness destroys society. We’re already well along in that regard.
Yes poor health is an epidemic, and AFAIAC its a personal responsibility.
See above.
They can teach it in school all they want, the can provide all the crummy tasting food they want, just dont make it my problem or my fault.
You don’t, yet you pay for taxes and probably vote or otherwise participate in a political process that defines how society should be regulated and governed. A government, by definition, rules over the masses.
It boggles my mind to understand why people would find the idea of a government wanting to provide better food and shutting out these corporations that provide food with no redeeming value whatsoever to be bad.
The greatest cultures were developed not on the premise of freedom and individuality but on agreement in society. Unfortunately, rotten decadence has created people who are afraid of other people, afraid of greatness, and afraid of self-sacrifice for the whole.
It’s pretty damn hysterically funny that the Freepers’ panties are in a bunch over schools choosing their lunch menus, yet accept that schools be allowed to feed kids period. Can’t really – if you’re an adult – have one without the other, right?
I could see it if the Freepers are saying schools offering lunches is Communism, or it’s their stealing of their precious bodily fluids, or whatever. They never would, since this is an issue that would actually involve them getting off their butts and, I don’t know, make their kids’ own lunch. Can’t have them being inconvenienced.
But logically, once you allow The State to feed kids lunches, you’re implicitly allowing them to choose what to feed them. So, feed them better. End of story.
This is a step in the right direction. No matter how well you train your child to “eat right” any normal kid will almost always grab cookies over carrots and soda over water if you eliminate that choice they will be better off in the long run. Kids will be kids and kids like sweets.
Also just because the food is supposed to become healthier doesn’t mean it has to taste like crap. If the food staff at the schools are forced to buy unprepared goods and actually cook them they can easily create great tasting meals for your children..just like you (parents) hopefully do at home . For me this isn’t about taking away choices for kids its about making sure that all the choices they do have are all in their best interest and not the interest of the junk-food companies. And if your kids are complaining about the school food being terrible why don’t you go to the school and ask to have one of the lunches and decide for yourself if it’s really that bad. If it is then push ( with your fellow parents) and have it changed or you could you know.. make your kids lunches yourself.
Wow, way to tackle the important issues, Congress…
@m0unds:
That’s more action than the previous republican majority congress can brag about.
The school lunch situation is a great example of how capitalism fails. Schools were given money by corporations whose goal was to create new consumers of their products. If anyone has been to a school cafeteria lately, you’d see that all they serve is processed garbage, there are rarely any healthy options. The nutritional value of what kids are fed is based purely on the bottom line and what can be made with the least impact on the school budget. Changing what is available to children in the school is a good idea, and the attention to this issue is long overdue.
Wow I think this is a good idea. If the school takes the money they have to follow the rules. And crying that your kid shouldn’t have thier menu decided for them by some faceless paper pusher is really weak. We all have some part of our life controlled by others. Do I like it no, but I realize what I can change and what I can’t.
I wish we had nutritious food at my school. Heck we didnt even have a cafateria, we got served Pizza hut, Taco Bell and Burger King..AT SCHOOL. There were no other choices period. Would I have always eaten the healthy fare…no but I would have eaten a lot healthier. I brought my lunch or went without I just couldn’t stomach eating that junk everyday. And my parents actually belived at 16 I could decide what I wanted, I packed my own lunch. Also we were about 5 miles from anyplace where you could get food, and we werent allowed to leave school at lunch. SO you really were trapped by the school and the FF places.
@Red_Eye: Wow, you’re a special kind of cold-hearted, aren’t you?
I dont care what excuses you want to give for the impoverished parents the bottom line is that kid is their responsibility. We didnt all crawl in bed to make that kid.
Sure, punish the children for the sins of their parents. Even my middle school students of all socioeconomic levels recognized this (without prompting) as the first reason to provide nourishment to children in poverty. As they pointed out, those children didn’t ask to be born.
Beyond that, you are so short-sightedly selfish that you’re hurting yourself in the long run. Pay for them now or pay for the later, you’re going to foot the bill for those children. It’s true with education now vs. prison later, and I posit that it’s true with nourishment now vs. healthcare later.
she gets meat cheese, grains carbs and junk food…my kid is in the upper percentile for her size and lower percentile for her weight. She is a tall lean machine with a large head and utterly brilliant for a 5 year old
Thankyou for proving my point. You don’t suppose that the meat, cheese, grains, and carbs that balance out the junk food have anything to do with her success, do you?
They did this in my school, taking out the pop wasn’t too smart. We can have gatorade, which is chocked full of sugar, for only .25 more, so 1.25 a week — $45 a school year. Our lunches are already horribly over priced and under portioned, the high school lunches cost more than elementary lunches, but the portions are the same. They went on a health kick and got rid of anything fried, and because of this, for some reason they raised ALL the prices of everything. I now spend about $26 a week on lunch, and don’t even get filled up.
I don’t have crap available in my house for my kids to eat, and I don’t want the school, paid for by my taxes, to have crap available for my kids to eat. Because, given the opportunity, kids will always choose crap. Why is this a problem for anyone? I suspect that the posters blathering on about the government taking away their freedoms don’t have children. In our district, the schools take in a lot of revenue from the vending machine companies, and have therefore resisted taking the chips and candy out of the schools. (They know healthy snacks won’t sell nearly as well.) It’s a sorry state of affairs.
maybe society will find out that not every kid in the world needs to be diagnosed with ADHD after all. maybe kids just eat and drink too much crap that causes sugar rushes, mood swings and inattentiveness during the school day.
i have to laugh when i hear people complain that the big, bad government is taking freedom away from kids. is government raping kids of their freedom to buy cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, guns, bomb making supplies and porn as well? please don’t take there rights to easily accessible, long-term disease causing candy and soda. i mean, sure they can bring it from home with no governmental barriers, but they should be able to have instant access, right???
let’s face it. while most of you people consider yourselves to be well above average intellects and A+ parents, 90% of parents in America choose bad things for their children to eat and don’t know good eating habits themselves. it’s not like we can REALLY rely on most parents to teach their kids this stuff in their own homes.
lets actually applaude the government on this one. while it might not be the most perfect plan, it’s definitely a major step in the right direction.
@ironchef: I suppose. But I don’t think being “less shitty” is worth any kind of praise.
@smoothtom
I don’t think the Coke machine and the Doritos machine are put in schools by federal money. I do object when the so-called “educated elite” force their “enlightened” point of view on others, but that’s beside the point.
The real point is this, and I’d LOVE you to answer this one question intelligently. Why is Coke unacceptable, in the name of having healthier kids, when Diet Coke is going to continue to be sold? Do you know what aspartame turns into chemically when it reacts with the acids in your stomach? FORMALDEHYDE!!! That’s real healthy, don’t you think? AND THE GOVERMENT KNOWS THIS!!! It’s all about government control of the population. Open your eyes!!! Look around you as your freedoms are eroded one by one. It’s the New World Order, it’s coming right at you, and by the time you relaize it, it’ll be too late.