From the Bangor Daily News

http://bangornews.com

by Meg Haskell

School vending machines targeted



AUGUSTA - Public schools long have profited by catering to students' taste for soft drinks, candy bars and other high-calorie, low-nutrient snacks, using proceeds from the sale of such sugary treats to support extracurricular programs. But under the provisions of a bill currently before the Legislature, schools would be forced to practice what they preach in health class, limiting the snacks and drinks offered in vending machines to choices more in keeping with the principles of good nutrition.



The proposal, one of five anti-obesity measures proposed by Rep. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, has strong support from health professionals and other groups but is opposed by the soft-drink industry, which turns a tidy profit from school machines while developing brand loyalty in young consumers.


Soft-drink manufacturers and distributors routinely negotiate agreements with cash-strapped schools, providing them a share of vending machine proceeds and other incentives like sports scoreboards. Schools use their share of revenues to fund such extras as field trips, after-school club activities and athletic uniforms and equipment.


Maine law restricts the on-campus sale of sugary, low-nutrient snacks to before- and after-school hours. Items sold during lunch must comply with the token standards of the state's "5 percent rule" - offering at least 5 percent of the recommended daily allowance of at least one key nutrient per 100 calories.


With obesity topping the list of public health issues besetting Mainers, Faircloth says it's time for schools to get their story straight. Tax-funded public programs should be promoting good health across the board, he said, not sending one message in health class and another in the form of the foods offered to students.


Faircloth wants to see the state mandate only 100 percent juice drinks and water instead of sodas and other non-nutritive drinks in school vending machines. Under the provisions of the bill, candy bars and other sweets also would be replaced with healthier snacks.


Schools already are free to negotiate with vendors, and a handful have chosen to eliminate these items from their machines. Calais High School, for example, went soda-free last fall.


Heather Erickson, coordinator of the local community wellness program, said she first brought the suggestion to the school board. With the board's approval, she approached the student council, which reaps the proceeds from the machines.


Initially the students balked at the idea, but they came around when she pointed out that with healthier offerings, vending machines could be left on during the school day.


Now, she says, sales are up, and the student council is getting more money than it was before. "The kids are fine with the change," Erickson said. The last time she met with them, "there were no snide remarks; they didn't jump me or tie me up or anything."


Calais High's student council adviser, Rick Chaffey, said vending machines have been in the school for 12 or 13 years. Students have used the proceeds - averaging about $60 a week during the school year - to purchase a large marble outdoor sign, trophy cases, weight-training equipment and other niceties that otherwise would be out of reach for the no-frills school.


Additionally, he said, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi have donated large electronic scoreboards advertising the brands.


Faircloth's bill is actively opposed by the Maine Soft Drink Association. Spokesman Dennis Bailey said a new law is unnecessary and the proposal is based on misinformation.


Distributors already cooperate with school systems to arrive at acceptable product lines, timers to control hours of access and other specifics, he said.


Bailey quoted industry studies showing bottled water outsells sodas in school machines by a 2-to-1 ratio, and he credited responsive marketing with the shift.


Demonizing soft drinks and other low-nutrient snacks doesn't get to the heart of the problem, he said. The real culprit is physical inactivity, he added.


A recent state Bureau of Health TV ad campaign aimed at reducing soft-drink consumption in young people was withdrawn after the industry alleged there were factual errors. Bailey argues the tax money spent on the ads would be better spent on promoting physical exercise for schoolchildren.


"If you really want to do something about obesity, go after exercise," he said.


The Maine Principals' Association hasn't taken an official position on the issue, but assistant executive director Jeff Sturgis said the organization has several concerns.


For one thing, nonstudent groups use school vending machines, including school faculty and staff, as well as evening adult education classes and other community members. Limiting diet choices for those groups might or might not be a good idea, Sturgis said, but it certainly would provoke reaction.


Additionally, some schools in Maine - mostly in urban and suburban areas - are well into four- or five-year contracts with distributors. Although those agreements would be honored under the terms of Faircloth's bill, the principals' association sees financial inequity as a possibility.


Children unable to get the drinks and snacks they want from machines at school will just bring them in their backpacks - or worse, "they'll walk down to the corner store and smoke a cigarette on the way," Sturgis said.


The MPA "can live with it either way," he said, but perhaps leaving the decision to local communities would be best.


Education committee co-chair Rep. Glen Cummings , D-Portland, said arguments heard before the committee were persuasive. "I was shocked by the level of obesity and the correlation with diabetes ... [Bill proponents] did a fabulous job of outlining how extensive this problem is," he said.


But, he said, opponents also made a strong case for local control of the issue and for sending a broader health message than simply limiting what school vending machines offer. In tight budget times, schools' ability to negotiate deals with vendors can be "vital" to their extracurricular programs, he added.


Faircloth says he isn't looking to pull the vending machine plug in schools.


"The specific intent of this bill is to keep the vendors in the schools" with a mandated shift to healthier offerings, he said.


Faircloth's five-bill "obesity package" answers critics' call to tackle the issue at a number of levels. In addition to the vending machine bill, he's looking to mandate high-visibility nutritional labeling for chain restaurants with 20 or more locations in Maine. He also wants the state to study ways to promote health in schools, and to fund and implement community transportation alternatives that encourage Mainers to walk, bike, skate or otherwise get where they need to go under their own power.


Should government stay out of the debate and let people make their own choices? By promoting cheap access to fossil fuels, by deregulating advertising to children and by allowing fast-food chains to obscure basic nutritional information, Faircloth says, the government already is playing a part - a detrimental one - in the health of Maine's children.


"Now we need the government to play an important role in making the situation better," he said.

My brother is a pepsi sales man, and we have talked about this issue several times. Its amazing how many schools want there cake and to eat it too. The will enter a 5 year deal to get their new scoreboard, but then will try to back out of the deal because of pressure from the parents about offering these "junk" foods.

The only thing I find odd is the want to replace the pop with Sport drinks and fruit juices. Ok, lets get rid of one overly sugered product and replace it with another high suger item?

I guess while we are at it, lets examine the nutritional value of the pieces of cardboard pizza they still serve at school. Chocolate milk? I think not!!!!

It just worries me when the government becomes involved in peoples personal decisions. I mean these are the same people who cannot balance a budget, and yet manage to give themselves raises? Heck the last time the government was involved with nutrition we ended up with the food pyramid.... Yikes!!!!

As a Mom, I concede the battle with the schools. It's five meals a week out of 21. I try to make sure she eats well at the other meals, though she is a sugar/flour lover. Continuing battle there. She's also thin, and very fit from lots of dancing, and doesn't like sodas. But school lunches are never going to be healthy. If they were, the kids wouldn't eat. Diana

Having been an overweight teenager I can say that activity is not always the problem. I was in sports and had so many after school activities that I didn't have time to snack continuously. I was always on the go. I spent my teenage years wondering what I was doing wrong.

I think on this issue there needs to be a balance. Why not offer healthy snacks too?

This is slightly sideways to the rest of this thread but thought i would mention it anyways...

I work in a big building with almost 1000 employees. There are several vending machines on every floor. I have been pushing to get low carb stuff in the machines and yesterday there were packages of pork rinds and slim jims! Now if I could only get the cafeteria to prepare more low carb items or at least list the nutrional facts....

This will sure be easier when the world gets around to the low carb way of eating.....

If our federal government, the state governments, the local city and town governments, and the people of the United States would realize that schools need more funding and supply that funding then our schools would not need to rely on the big soda and snack companies for support! Isn't it sad that a school can't even get money for a trophy case to display the wonderful achievements of the student body?

Yes, I agree to getting rid of the pop and unhealthy snacks. Support your schools.

I have to agree with Shelley on the exercise issue. I played on the tennis team in the fall, the swim team in the winter (plus intermural volleyball) and softball team in the spring. I often walked the 3 miles home from school (and yes, part of it WAS uphill) because I found it to be a good cool-down activity. I spent summers training for tennis in the fall (running and playing tennis for at least an hour every day) plus swimming (we lived on Lake Michigan during the summer), yet I continued to gain weight all through high school. How much more exercise can a kid get and still get their homework done?
Our school had doughnut and cookie sales twice a week and pizza sales every Friday and yes, we had the vending machines filled with chips and candy as well as the pop machines (bottled water wasn't around back then). We also had a school store where you could purchase candy that wasn't available in the vending machines to support the student council. We weren't allowed to leave school property during school hours until our senior year when we were allowed to leave for lunch...you guessed it...McDonalds, Pizza Hut or Burger King as often as we could afford it.
On a positive note, my kids' school (K-8) does not have vending machines for the students. They do have school lunches brought in every day which are low-fat, food pyramid creations that I consider something of a joke (loaded with highly processed carbs and sugar) and my kids don't participate, except to raid what they like out of the extra lunches from time to time. Pop is not allowed to be sent with kids in their lunches and they are not allowed to have red or purple juices, either. OTOH, teachers are allowed to give out candy for treats and parents are allowed to bring in cakes, cookies or doughnuts for birthday treats. If they ever think about putting in vending machines for the kids, I will definitely protest. I might not be heard, but I'll definitely make sure my opinion on the matter is known to the powers that be.
My biggest gripe with the school is that kids are not given enough time to eat lunch (maybe 15 minutes at most, usually 10) and only 2 short recesses each day with gym only once a week. Not nearly enough activity for high-energy kids. I try to compensate by making sure that they get outside to play after school whenever the weather permits it. I'm afraid that the school systems are trying to cram as much learning time into the day as possible in an effort to catch up to other countries (who have longer school years, not longer school days) at the expense of a student body that is getting fatter by the year.

Here is an editorial response in the 03/03/03 Bangor Daily News.

(Silly me, I read the paper in the teacher's room and then if there is something good, I'll check it on-line later!)

Stop government obesity promotion



My favorite meal is a double cheeseburger with crispy fries and a Coke. The government can’t tell me what I can and cannot eat. If I want to send my child to school with a candy or soda, that’s my choice, but should government take my tax money, then turn around and promote candy and soda to my kids in publicly funded schools? I think not.

Government must get out of the obesity promotion business.

What if an American president gave a speech calling for America to become the world’s most overweight country? None have, but Big Government achieved exactly that goal with these policies :

1. Using taxpayer money to subsidize oil companies and automobiles to the detriment of other forms of transportation;

2. Giving corporations free rein over our airwaves to advertise to our children; (four out of five child-advertising dollars sell high-fat, high-sugar products to our kids);

3. Making it impractical for busy Americans to get basic information about food in big chain restaurants;

4. Underfunding public schools so educators beg corporations to advertise and sell unhealthy products to our children on taxpayer-funded campuses.

The National Governor’s Association concluded, “Put simply, the costs of obesity now exceed those of tobacco use.” Maine has New England’s highest obesity rate for three years running. We have a higher rate of diabetes II (by 29 percent) than the rest of America — where diabetes is epidemic. Care about the state budget? The overweight epidemic accounts for one-tenth of Medicaid costs. Fiscal conservatives must support strong action now.

Republican and Democratic legislators, the Maine Medical Association, Maine Dental Association, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, The Maine State Nurses Association, Maine School Food Service Association and Attorney General Steve Rowe seek to return to Mainers our freedom of choice in transportation, food and, most important, choices with our children unfettered by government-promoted commercialism in schools.

Here’s the plan:

LR 600 takes back our transportation choices, promoting the Safe Paths to Schools Program which steers young people off the couch, onto their feet and bike pedals — and off to school. Also LR 600 emulates Oregon’s law giving 1 percent of transportation money to walking and biking trails. In the 1960s more than 60 percent of children walked or biked to school; now 13 percent do. Mainers deserve good roads — and good in-town walking trails, bike trails and maintained sidewalks.

LD 104 says government-funded public schools will not promote sugar drinks and candies via campus vending machines. Parents and children are free to bring candy and soda to school. According to the medical journal Lancet, soft drinks and high sugar drinks are the No. 1 factor in increased sugar in the American child’s diet, at 30 percent of the increase. A high school teacher reports that when the bell rings, students pump quarters into vending machines, buying soda and delaying departure of the school bus. Public schools undermine parental choice when they become tools of commercialism.

Healthy choices in school vending machines would include products sold by soft drink companies (like juice and water). Schools adopting these policies have NOT lost revenue.

LD 391 says big chain restaurants must post caloric information about products on menus and menu boards. Big chains already have this information. Small chains with less than 20 locations nationally are exempt. Consumers have long consulted nutrition information on grocery food packages. In 1970 less than 25 percent of our food dollar was restaurant food. Now it’s more than 45 percent. Restaurants are not “an occasion” anymore. Professional dietitians, recently asked to estimate fast food meal calories, estimated too low. How is the average citizen supposed to know that fast food products have often tripled in calories after decades of super-sizing? Consumers at big restaurant chains, just as in grocery stores, have a right to make informed choices.

Providing consumers with accurate information means those who use the products will have no room to complain, because consumers will then have that informed choice.

LD 471 creates a commission to suggest ways to reverse the decline of physical education, analyze cost-saving possibilities of covering nutrition education and obesity prevention in health care, and analyze advertising to children in public schools in a country where Coke and Pepsi alone spend 600 times the amount on advertising than is spent on the five-a-day fruit and vegetable program.

There is talk of universal health care. I support it. Others don’t, but know this: Any plan to deal with universal health care that does not address the epidemic of overweight Americans is unrealistic. Heavy people must never be stigmatized, but government should stop promoting obesity through bad policy. As obesity expert Professor James Hill says, “Obesity is the normal response to the American environment.” When one-fourth of our kids ages 5 to 10 have signs of heart disease (fat in the arteries, high blood pressure), America’s public health is dangerously at risk.

This epidemic ia the No. 1 public health issue of our new century.

We can regain the freedom of choice that government has usurped. When freedom of choice returns, public health will improve.

Like fiscal conservatism? Personal responsibility? A free market? These bills are right up your alley.

Remember: Diabetes II, formerly known as “adult onset diabetes,” has been renamed because so many children are so heavy that they have developed this debilitating life-shortening disease. Look into the eyes of these children and know: Government must work for, not against, public health.

Sean Faircloth is a state representative from Bangor.