New Legislation Aims To Abolish Junk Food From Schools
In public schools across the country, kids may begin finding bottled water and granola bars in their vending machines, in lieu of soft drinks and candy bars.
A bill introduced in the Senate on Thursday is attempting to expand the scope of current government regulations from the cafeteria to the snacks and drinks sold outside of the lunchroom.
Senators Tom Harkin and Lisa Murkowski explain that their bill, if passed into law, would allow the U.S. Agriculture Department to set “common-sense nutrition standards” for all refreshments sold anywhere on school campuses.
Senator Harkin of Iowa is head of the Senate Agriculture Committee charged with oversight of school lunch and breakfast programs in the nation’s public schools. In all, these programs cost an estimated $11 billion annually in tax dollars.
As federal nutrition programs, including school lunches, come up for renewal later this year, a spokesman for the Agriculture Committee has suggested that the new bill could simply be added as a part of the reauthorization of the program, rather than as an independent piece of legislation.
“Poor diet and physical inactivity are contributing to growing rates of chronic disease in the United States,” says Harkin, a Democrat. “We must take preventative action now.”
Current national statistics estimate that over 30 percent of America’s children qualify as overweight and more than 15 percent are obese. Senator Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, said that the proposed legislation is an attempt to curb the nation’s “youth obesity epidemic.”
In previous years, Murkowski and Harkin have teamed up to push for similar legislation. The bipartisan duo could, however, have better chances of success this time around, as President Obama’s administration has explicitly recognized obesity as one of the top health threats to Americans.
The legislation has drawn wide support from a number of consumer and health advocacy groups like the American Diabetic Association, the American Heart Association and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Reginald Felton of the National Schools Boards Association has, however, leveled some criticism towards the bill, saying that local communities should not be forced to adopt further federal guidelines, saying that a “one size fits all policy” cannot possibly take into account all the needs of individual cases.
“It’s intrusive for the federal government to establish requirements beyond the programs that they fund, particularly when states are addressing the issue,” explained Felton. “If local boards want to restrict, they should.”
He added that a number of schools use the proceeds from snack sales to help fill deficits in their budgets.
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