More efforts to mandate stricter school food guidelines expected

Congress is expected to consider legislation next year to update decades-old federal nutrition standards for snack or “competitive” foods sold in school cafeterias alongside regular school meals and would apply those standards throughout school grounds, including vending machines and school stores.

The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act, introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to issue proposed regulations revising its nutrition standards within 180 days after the legislation is enacted.

Even though legislation has not passed either house, the USDA has already begun working with the School Nutrition Association to develop new guidelines, said NSBA lobbyist Chrisanne Gayl.

In a related development, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, announced voluntary guidelines last month on snacks sold in schools. The guidelines were developed with and approved by five companies that produce snack foods -- Campbell Soup Co., Dannon, Kraft Foods, Mars, and PepsiCo.

Last spring, the alliance announced a similar agreement with the beverage industry.

According to Gayl, the threat of litigation has been a driving force in these initiatives. Last year, professor John Banzhaf of George Washington University warned that local school boards  -- as well as the major soft drink companies -- would likely be the target of a pending lawsuit.

Banzhaf recently warned that school districts’ failure to comply with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s guidelines by continuing to sell sugary soft drinks in school “would create an even stronger case for legal liability by school boards and individual school board members for damages and attorneys’ fees than was contemplated in our original warning.”

Meanwhile, several states have acted on their own to limit junk food in schools.

A recently enacted law in Connecticut imposes the nation’s most stringent restrictions on the types of beverages sold in K-12 public schools.

Only water, milk, and 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice are allowed. Gatorade and other sports drinks, which are allowed in small quantities under the alliance agreement, are banned in Connecticut.

The measure also offers schools financial incentives for stocking nutritious snacks in vending machines and as a la carte items.

A similar measure, which the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education opposed, was defeated last year.

A California law requires schools to phase out sodas by 2009, although it does allow sports drinks. It also puts restrictions on calories, fat, and sodium on individual food items and requires more fresh fruits and vegetables to be available in schools.

A recent study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest says there is a lack of uniformity among state nutrition policies. In 2005, legislators in 42 states introduced about 200 bills to address the nutritional quality of school foods.

A survey conducted in July by NSBA found 94 percent of school board members believe school nutrition is an important issue.

Eighty-three percent of respondents believe they have an obligation to limit the availability of junk food, such as sodas, candy, and high-fat baked goods, to students, and 86 percent of respondents had adopted a policy limiting students’ access to low-nutrition foods.