New Bill Proposes Study of Junk-Food Marketing in Schools
New legislation proposed in Congress today would require the U.S. Department of Education to study the nutritional value of foods available in schools, as well as the forms of food marketing. Sponsored by Representatives Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Todd Platt (R-PA), the National School Food Marketing Assessment Act has a large roster of supporters, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, National Parent Teacher Association, American Heart Association, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Everything from McDonald's burgers and fries to Pizza Hut dishes to candy and soda is sold in public schools, often in lunch rooms. While companies that market to children have adopted guidelines that ostensibly ban in-school food marketing to kids under 12, the rules are ambiguous, to say the least. The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative's Fact Sheet on the Elementary School Advertising Principles [pdf] allows for so many loopholes—marketing on vending machine exteriors, branded display racks, sponsored curricula—that the limits are mostly useless.
Want to support a bill to study food and food marketing in schools? If so, write your Representative using this handy form and ask him or her to support the National School Food Marketing Assessment Act.
Food Industry Seeks to Maintain Junk-Food Marketing in Schools [Center for Science in the Public Interest]
(Photo via The Gifted Photographer)
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Wh th hll d w vn nd std n ths? Th rls lrd xst; jst cls th dmn lphls!
**I disemvowel my posts to protest the censorship of "distasteful" speech on Consumerist. And yes, I recognize the irony of leaving vowels in my disclaimer. Deal with it.**
My elementary school (private) served McDonald's as part of its lunch program. One of the families in the school owned 20+ franchises in the area and when the lunch program was going to shut down due to funding issues, they stepped in to sponsor it. So in our case was it better to have no lunch program at all, or one that included a menu of McDonald's? Not sure about the answer there. Note: The McD's food was limited to basics hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fish sandwiches and nuggets. There were other choices beyond just the McD's lineup - sandwiches, pizza. I had McD's 2 or 3 times a week and I turned ok just fine.
Study? What exactly do they think is not already known about this? Junk food is in schools, junk food is bad for kids, and junk food should be evicted from schools. End of. Quit analyzing and do something about it!
It is a parent's responsibility to provide the best nourishment for your child... not the governments.
People like this make our founding fathers roll over in their graves.
My city council and school board just approved sponsorship of the high school I graduated from back in '91.
They wanted local mom and pop stores to take on the most sponsorship but that failed. So, now they have mostly national chains like "The Hut" aka oil on round bread, and other fast food places.
This should be interesting. The junk food industries will definitely want to kill the bill but the DOE (who would be doing the Study) might also want it to go away. Don't some schools get fat donation and sponsorship $$s for allowing advertising by outside companies?
Before DOE can do this Study there should be a determination of whether it can be done by them without bias.
@wickedpixel: I can see how having a lunch program, even an unhealthy one, is better than having no lunch program at all. Some families can't afford to feed their kids three times a day. School becomes a method of survival in more ways than one.
@webwbr: It is the parents job, but if the food is there, the kids will eat it. A parent cannot be there 100% of the time and since the kids spend a large part of their day at school having healthier food available is a good thing.
@dragonfire81: Yep, of course it will be under the guise of a teabagger call to arms, "keep the goverment out of our public schools!"
@wickedpixel: Same I went to a private k-9 school. We had subway and a local pizza place but it was before the whole Jared thing.
The pizza place did pizza, hamburgers, chicken strips/wings, a bunch of random foods made with ground beef.
I never like their pizza though because all they had was thin crust.
We either got that or a set of vending machines with food in them.
@corinthos: Oh and the school has a sister school for the 10-12 students. They had a course where students earned credits (and minimum wage)working in the subway. It was pretty much franchised to the school with some department heads managing and students working it.
@babyruthless: In DC there are charter schools, which in a way, act as private schools - but they don't charge tuition, and are publicly funded. I don't know if they get lunch programs, though.
@MikeB: +1
My mom always packed me a nice home made lunch. But it didn't keep me from eating the oreos, ham sandwiches, chicken nuggets and hamburgers people would also give me.
@Pinget: Well, I think pizza on Fridays was pretty awesome, but I guess some people would consider it "junk."
Anyway, the best solution I can think of is to do what the Japanese do: serve every student the same dish that day. It might be obnoxiously healthy and bland, but since it's the only food available you'll eat it out of sheer desperation.
Only in the Deep South would pols and citizens think that pimping their children to McNuggets is "school reform".
God, from the comments, this problem is worse than I thought.
Seriously? We can't all pony up a few extra dollars a year to make it so our children don't have to eat McDonald's food for lunch? Come on, people.
@dragonfire81: That is the way government works. Who ever bribes the corrupt politicians the most wins while everyone else loses. Elected office should be like jury duty and not like a get rich quick scheme.
@TCama: It's not purely a food issue, though. I had a ton of junk food when I was a kid, and others here have as well. But the difference was, when I was in elementary school (the 90s), I had about 40 minutes of recess and an hour of PE several days a week. Now, kids are getting unhealthy food, but there is less physical activity.
@webwbr: Pretty sure the founding fathers weren't banking on powerful corporations like McDonalds perverting our representative democracy with backroom deals and shady private lobbyists, either.
Marketing of any kind should be banned in all publicly funded schools. If you think the school isn't getting enough funding then don't vote NO when the district asks for more tax dollars. If you don't like a commercial on television you can turn it off. Children shouldn't be forced to view advertising.
@Shoelace: For future reference, DOE traditionally refers to the Department of Energy, while ED refers to the Department of Education.
@Persistence: Hmm, I don't know. This seems very narrow in focus. When I was a kid, we had the Scholastic book programs. Yeah, there were a bunch of reading programs, but we specifically only did the Scholastic one. Is that marketing? Yep. But we did it. We got the little brochures that had the book descriptions and we would fill out the order form on the back.
@pecan 3.14159265: Especially at the high school level, where mandatory PE isn't as common. I agree; I got a lot more exercise at the elementary and junior high levels. But come high school, PE wasn't required anymore - and that's where I saw the worst lunch options in the cafeteria, too.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but absolutely none of the schools I went to growing up offered any sort of food program. is this an American requirement of schools?
@pecan 3.14159265: Scholastic book fairs were one of my favorite things about elementary school. The little flyers with the books every month were awesome too.
@wickedpixel: Along the same lines as your last sentence, I once ate McDonald's for lunch every day for three months and lost 15 pounds. It's not the type of food eaten as much as the amount and the exercise you get - those are the things schools need to focus on, more than 'fast food is evil'.
@UCLAri: That's how it was for me here in the US. School lunch was the same for everyone. If you didn't want it, you could bring a bag lunch.
I don't think it's only America, but from what I read it is indeed law that schools serve free or low cost lunches to students because of the direct correlation between good nutrition and cognitive function.
@supertechman-protests disemvoweling by disemvoweling himself:
... Not gonna comment, just hoping you're not anti-death penalty.
@pecan 3.14159265: Perhaps that was a narrow statement. Subjecting children to commercial advertising that does not relate to education, within the confines of school, should be banned. I don't know how I feel about advertising in school sports arenas, because I really feel that sports programs shouldn't necessarily be publicly funded. I know the claim is that sports brings in the most money, but what does that matter if the arts hit the chopping block first.
Several laws prohibit college or high school students from profiting from sports or endorsements, and the reality regarding numbers of people who actually excel far enough to have a professional sports career are minuscule in comparison to those who have professional careers relating to the arts.
@pecan 3.14159265: we used to hold contests to see who could put the most napkins on top of their pizza before the grease stopped soaking through...
@Ratty: Good question. I would like to know too.
My school apparently used to have a canteen at one point, but they shuttered it because kids didnt use it. Everyone brought lunch from home. And if you didnt, you'd have to starve it out.
A lot of schools do have food programs though. Especially richer, fully private schools with deep pockets and exotic fees.
Government and NGO run schools for poor kids have those too. And they were not because it was convenient, but to attract parents to send their kids to school instead of sending them to work. That way the kids could get a good meal AND learn to write their own names. But mostly so that the kids could get a good meal. Sad and depressing, but true.
Re: Kids bringing their own lunches - It was helped by the fact that most (99%) of the kids in my school had stay at home moms whose sole focus in life was to take care of their kids (while saving money, and making the kids study ceaselessly to a bitter end).
@pecan 3.14159265: I'm so sick of this argument, that I'll go ahead and just tell you what you want to hear.
Yes, I am in favor of children starving.
Maybe if we didn't make sweeping policy that rewards irresponsibility, parents who were unable to provide basic things like, oh, I don't know, FOOD, to their children, wouldn't be having kids in the first place. With the widespread availability of abortion, what is the excuse exactly?
Maybe if we didn't guarantee that the government will take care of every poor decision you would make, people would stop making bad decisions. If you have a kid and you can't even provide them food, you're a terrible person, and I'm NOT terrible for not wanting to pay for YOUR mistake.
@Trai_Dep: You know whats fun? Waiting for someone's input before you can get on with your work.
You know why it is fun? Because it lets me explore useless stuff.
Like how Vandelay Import Export started commenting on Aug 18, and how I Love New Jersey was banned on Aug 17.
It might just be me, but if I was banned for being myself, and if I came back again under another name, I would at least try to mask it.
@Pinget:
Personally, I'd think kids should choose for themselves, and taught proper nutrition. A person is perfectly able to live a healthy life with the occational McDonalds. Why remove the choice for responsible people because of the irresponsible people? Less options is never a good idea.
@babyruthless: Don't assume there aren't very impoverished kids at private schools. I went to a semi-expensive private school on scholarship. I knew kids who needed the free lunch program, and they had to hide it from everyone else.
And the industry lobby will kill the bill in 3...2...1...