Did any of you happen to notice when Gov. Bill Richardson announced his "Healthy Kids" agenda? I wasn't at the press conference, but I can just see him standing there at Kearny Elementary, doling out noogies, declaring that he was going to get all the junk food out of our schools. The Guv promised he would ban vending machine snacks from elementary schools, eliminate all carbonated drinks from middle schools, make sure middle and high school vending machines carry only healthy snacks and limit all snacks to 200 calories per serving. Hooray, right?
Before we give Bill too much credit, it should be mentioned that the State Legislature slowly and steadily has been working away at this same issue. Two years ago, it commissioned a study to determine whether the lack of PE classes and nutrition education and the sale of junk food in schools were contributing to childhood obesity. The shocking answer: Yes.
Last year's State Legislature passed several bills addressing the issue. One of them required the Public Education Department (PED) to come up with rules about junk food in schools by Dec. 31, 2005, which they sure enough did.
This Friday, PED is taking public comment on a series of proposed rules at a public meeting here in Santa Fe (see details below). Two of the rules establish physical education and health education performance standards. The Nutrition rule is the one that covers junk food in schools. It's pretty strict-stricter than most states' rules-and the teachers, nutritionists and parents I spoke to about it were largely impressed. But here's the thing: This Nutrition rule only applies to food sold in vending machines, not the chocolate bars sold as fundraisers by student clubs, not the triple cheese nachos sold a la carte in the lunch line, nor the candy given out as rewards by teachers. So when Richardson says he's going to take the junk food out of our schools, he really means some of the junk food.
Those chocolate bars and triple cheese nachos, in addition to vending machine products, are all called "competitive foods" because they compete with school lunches. School lunches are required to meet dietary standards set by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA); competitive foods aren't.
This is no small matter. There is a lot of food consumed in school that falls through the gaps left by this policy. Think I'm exaggerating? A study in the December, 2005 issue of The Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine focused on that exact problem. The study showed that for each kind of competitive food that schools allowed, the kids' overall average body mass index increased by 10 percent. Put in the simplest terms, this means that the food kids get from incentives, rewards and fundraising makes them fatter. It does matter.
The second rule up for public comment this Friday is the Wellness Policy rule. USDA requires that all school districts that receive federal funding make up wellness policies covering nutrition and physical activity by June 30, 2006. The Wellness Policy rule will also require school districts to write policies that cover things like physical education, health education and staff wellness. School districts have more time, until January 2007, to get this done.
The Wellness Policy rule basically says, hey, school districts, you gotta get real about this issue and make some policies. (In fact, many school districts already have been working on their wellness policies for months.) PED expects that these local policies should cover any gaps in the Nutrition rule; they specifically suggest that local policies address competitive foods from fundraising and lunchroom a la carte sales.
Do we really want to leave it to individual school districts to eliminate the other important sources of junk food in the schools? If PED knows that competitive foods are bad, why are they focusing only on vending machines? The official answer I got from a PED spokeswoman was that the legislation prevented it; but the bill actually says that the rules shouldn't prohibit or limit the sale of food through fundraisers "when the items are intended for sale off the school campus." Like those huge candy bars that end up getting taken to work by beleaguered parents. Not like food sold at school stores, or a la carte in the cafeteria.
Some of you may be thinking to yourselves, What the hell is all this blather about? Like I care! And yeah, I can dig your position. I don't have kids myself so what does it matter to me that everyone else's rugrats are pushing maximum density, right? Seriously, my barren brothers and sisters, have you seen any kids lately? Nearly one out of three American kids aged 6 to 19 is overweight. More than half of them, or 9 million, are obese, or dangerously overweight. They're calling them Generation O-for "obesity."
We are doing serious damage to our kids' health, slowly killing them, with junk food on the one hand and
America's Next Top Model
on the other. Personally, I think the Public Education Department should include all competitive foods in their rules. Secretary of Education Dr. Veronica C. Garcia will take all public comments into consideration before approving the rules. She has the power to make changes based on your ideas. For more information on the rules, go to
.
Send your comments to the Director of PED's School and Family Support Bureau, Kristine Meurer (
) by Friday at the latest. Or show up in person:
Public Comment on Proposed Public Education Department Nutrition Rules
9:15 am Friday, Jan. 6
Rio Grande Room, Toney Anaya Building
(2550 Cerrillos Road)
Tell me where to eat! I need your input. Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to food@sfreporter.com.
