The Crackdown on School Foods
July 31, 2012 at 11:15 am
by Lynya-Floyd
By Winnie Yu and Lynya Floyd
If your kid can’t buy a chocolate bar between classes, will he opt for trail mix instead? Here’s the new debate over access to snacks.
You can control what your kids eat when they’re at home, but how about when they’re at school? (And we’re not just talking about lunchbox swaps). Some experts believe removing indulgent “competitive foods” from schools—like the treats sold in vending machines, at stores and on a la carte lines—help kids make healthier eating choices. And it’s a possibility the USDA is considering as they prepare to announce new national guidelines restricting those types of items this year.
Regulators might be hoping for the kind of change seen in California, where state laws have banned the sale of sweetened beverages and limited snack foods since 2009. California teens eat 158 fewer calories a day than kids in states without these rules, according to a study in the Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine. However, some experts say access doesn’t mean excess. A recent analysis of data on 20,000 middle school students in New Jersey showed that having junk food in schools didn’t lead to weight gain.
We asked Jessica Donze Black, R.D., director of the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project to give us more information about what’s coming down the pipeline and why it’s important for moms to get involved.
Q. Why is the USDA regulating “competitive foods” in schools?
A. Congress directed the USDA to update the standards as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010. The USDA needs to do this because in addition to the meals they eat in school, 40% of kids eat snack foods at school.
Q. Will restricting foods lead kids to eat healthier or will they just look elsewhere for indulgent snacks?
A. I think evidence shows this can work. Some of it has to do with the approach: involving kids in the practice. Letting them sample things and taste test foods. Kids will eat from the options that are available, so why not make them all healthy choices?
Q. What should parents be aware of when the recommended regulations come out?
A. We want standards to reflect the best nutrition science of day: reasonable calorie and fat caps. Reducing sodium over time. Limiting added sugars. Promoting the foods we know kids need more of such as fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy. The most important thing parents can do is be informed. What you’re looking for is big picture. Ask yourself: “Will these changes improve the school foods available to my kid?”
Q. Why should parents write in to the USDA with their comments and questions once the new regulations are announced?
A. Because the USDA reads every comment submitted. If you have an opinion—and that’s a great thing!—they’ll read and catalog it and when they finalize the rule they’ll take it into account.
You can tell the USDA how you feel about the proposed changes (once they’re made public) by going to regulations.gov to post your comments and questions. Or post a comment here and let us know what you think!
Lyna Floyd is the health director at Family Circle magazine, and Winnie Yu is a freelance health writer.
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Seems kinda crazy that this article was in the same issue as the one where folks are up in arms about banning books! It should be all or nothing! If ‘they’ shouldn’t tell you what you can and can’t read, they shouldn’t be able to tell you what you can and can’t eat! If I educate myself and my kids about what is good for us and what isn’t, it should be our right to choose if today I want to treat myself to some potato chips or not. Home of the Free is no longer a good description of our country.
i think this is just ridiculous. seriously. Mrs. Obama don’t know what the heck were getting to eat at our school. I’m a former student at a high school and usually all we are getting to eat now is a sandwich with meat on it and some mac and cheese or something like that. yeah they put fruit out there but i don’t like bananas or some kind of peepers. and guess what i bet she’s eating like a queen and getting roast beef and mash potatoes and gravy every day, and look what we get. And i also have football practice after that and somehow I’m supposed to live on a sandwich. yeah i can go up for seconds for $2.50, for one measly sandwich. REALLY! this is stupid now. now i go have to go home and eat normal food. Yeah and i almost forgot did i say we don’t get any spices, no SALT, but we get pepper. who puts pepper on a potato, but not salt. SEE. I think this is stupid. I’m starving at school because Mrs. Obama thinks were fat. EXCUSE ME. i don’t think she’s been to the country lately. yeah i got to go home and work every night doing chores at my farm Mrs. Obama. I’m not like some of those fat kids that sit on there ass at home eat go to McDonald’s every night. yeah i’, gonna say it cause the government can’t. this is mainly on the city kids that don’t get out and do anything, but play video games. And like my parents said, yeah you might take the school lunches away but they fat kids are still gonna go to McDonald’s every night. Mrs. Obama needs to come out to the country and see us kids. I bet you won’t find barely any fat kids cause we work outside, like you do in the city,( And I’m not saying that every kid in the city is fat, and let me tell you, you know your fat if your fat, so i just wanted to get that straight. But I think this is stupid cause I’m starving out here and my mom has to pay $2.50 a day for one sandwich and something like mac and cheese, and i still have to come home and eat something she made for diner so i can get full. so now I’m done talking and i hope that somebody out there will get this straight and get our normal meals back. please. PLEASE!
Around here we do not have vending machines that carry snack items until high school age. Those bags are so small anyway i don’t think with serving they are getting, it’s not calories that growing teenagers are not going to burn off. Most Teenagers are on a budget anyway it’s not like they are going to choose to buy like 6 bags of chips in one day. Growing up that is something i can safely say i never saw. Where i live our high schools have a 50 minute PE class that is more exercise than about 95% of adults get.There were times when i wished i get a hold of something more healthy from the vending machine, but also times when knew i needed more calories. Adding a row of more healthy options would be okay, but to just regulate the items so they are all healthy is taking away personal rights. Teenagers need to learn to make decisions, in some cases we are speaking of the 18 year old young adult, at this point It’s not our right to say you can’t have that bag of chips or candy bar. I am all for healthy choices in the vending machine, but lets not be control freaks about it.
The government should only regulate the food the school cafeterias provide, hands of the vending machines. All children/parents have the right to decide whether to bring lunch, buy a school lunch or something from a vending machine.
My children chose not to buy school lunch because it was unappetizing and the line was to long that by the time they got their lunch it was time to go to class.
As parent we have the right to decide what our children eat, not the government.I think it is high time to tell the government to mind their own business and leave the raising of our children to we the parents, because we know what is best for our children.
I am a \lunch lady\ as well as a mom of 2 pre-teen boys. First of all, reducing the snacks kids get at school is NOT going to fight the obesity epidemic! Lunch at school is only a very small part of the food kids get in an entire day! If the kids don’t get what they want from the cafe, they simply bring it from home. I myself have seen 2 liter bottles of soda, large bags of chips and BOXES of snack cakes being carried around our lunch room! Wouldn’t it be better if the kids bought these items in portion controlled packaging? Eating better starts at home, we are not miracle workers in the cafeteria who can miraculously make your child eat their veggies! In fact, we can put it on the tray, but we cannot monitor what goes in the trash. One final note, the government wants us to serve better food to the kids, then the quality of the food they send us every month from the USDA should be checked as well.
It all starts at home. Parents/ guardians are responsible for the choices their children make. There are plenty of families who eat whole/ healthy foods and their children would never choose unhealthy snacks. Or you pack your child lunch if you are concerned about the choices at school.
The government is getting too involved in everything. Many members of the government struggle with their own judgement/ choices so I’d prefer they stay away from mine.
I worked in a high school caf for two years in TN. Though I think that this is all well and good to try to get kids to eat better, there is some major problems. I know at least in the school system that I worked for, there was not enough resources to do this 100% effectively. We were always working on a skeleton crew (never enough people that can handle working with hungry high school students), not enough support from the teaching staff (they felt they deserved better treatment) and lack of funding! Some of the equipment that we used had been there since the school opened in the early 80s, and if not that, it was broken most of the time anyway because we could never get a good repair man out there.
There is also one other problem with all this, most kids eat whatever they want at home. Regulating one meal a day (with snacks in between) is not enough to curb this problem. It may work with younger kids and then they grow up eating right at school. But without that being done at home, it is pointless and they are making it harder on the lunch ladies and gentlemen that work hard to make sure all the kids eat. Parents think that school is to blame, when maybe the blame should start when you order pizza three times a week instead of having steamed rice and veggies. Though I have no children, I have a husband who is in the military and his best friend spends more time at our place than in his barracks. They both come home at crazy hours so food needs to be ready quick. I can cook a meal within 15 minutes and it be within my husband’s diet. All I have to do is make sure the meat is thawed out. So Don’t blame the schools for the weight problem of the USA when this war should really start at home…
I think it is very wrong to refuse to serve whole milk with school lunches. My child NEEDS the calories, and what better source than whole milk? Before I complained to the state, her school served chocolate milk (full of additives) and skim milk (aka blue water), neither of which did she like, so in addition to not getting enough calories she risked dehydration. Why is there no concern for those children who have trouble gaining weight??
I think the government needs to stay out of our business. They have no right to tell people what to eat. I think that most people know what healthy is and can make a choice. Thats what FREEDOM is. There is always a way to get unhealthy foods if you want them bad enough. Our government has bigger things to concern themselves withe besides what Johnny and Suzie are eating for lunch. Concentrate on our tremendous debt so our kids can eat in the future and feed their families. Protect our borders so our kids can grow up safe.
I think it’s a start in the right direction. Our kids need to be healthier. This should help tremendously, but parents also need to do their part at home.