UPDATE, February 7, 2012: Despite efforts to improve the nutritional value of school lunches, almost half of all elementary students still have access to junk food on school campuses in the form of competitive food--snacks and drinks sold separately in vending machines, cafeterias and snack bars, finds a new study "Student Access to Competitive Foods in Elementary Schools", and reported on by Yahoo News' Healthday .
Researchers, Lindsey Turner, PhD, and Frank Chaloupka, PhD, from the Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, surveyed 2,647 public and 1,205 private elementary schools.
Sugary snack foods were the most available items, with kids at suburban and rural schools having more access to junk food (53, 54%) than their peers in the city (44%), and small towns (44%). Low-fat foods and sweets were more available in larger public schools than in smaller schools; snacks were more available in private schools than in public schools.
Increasing awareness of the problem helps, but Turner pointed out that without regulation a lot of schools won't change their policies. "We have a huge window of opportunity now with the United States Department of Agriculture now studying regulations for these foods in schools," she added. Under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the USDA can set standards for all foods sold in schools. (See below)
Prior to the 2010 new regulations, federal guidelines only applied to government-subsidized meals (free/reduced cost); the new regs will extend to all foods sold on public school campuses, including vending machines. The guidelines that will inform the vending machine regulations are currently being drafted, and the above research is most likely intended as part of that data gathering.
The report was published in February's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Previously reported:
January 26, 2011: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) rolled out the new changes to the National School Lunch Program yesterday, the first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in more than 15 years, reports Mary Clare Jalonick of the Associated Press.
Sec'y of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and First Lady Michelle Obama ( at left, eating lunch with students from Parklawn Elementary, Alexandria, VA), announced the changes that begin to take effect this September and will be phased in over a 3-year period. The changes to school lunches will eventually include regulations regarding in-school breakfast and snacks.
While pizza will be still be classified a vegetable and fries will not be limited, (thanks to the National Potato Council and frozen food companies who spent $5.6 million lobbying Congress to pass a bill in November 2011 prohibiting the disqualification), pizza will be made with healthier ingredients.
...Entire meals will have calorie caps for the first time and most trans fats will be banned. Sodium will gradually decrease over a 10 year period. Milk will have to be low in fat and flavored milks will have to be nonfat.
According to The Hill:
The cost... [6 cents a meal increase] will be partially offset by other provisions in the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, including "a la carte foods" revenue that should produce "over $1 billion a year in new food revenues beginning in school year 2011-2012."
Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.
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