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Some Back Soda-Free Campuses

Posted on: Thursday, 4 May 2006, 09:04 CDT

By Brooke Bryant, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

May 4--Mara Weber-Appleton's T-shirt features a vintage ad touting bottled Coke, but the 15-year-old doesn't drink the stuff.

She says she was raised healthier than that, and doesn't like the bubbles, anyway.

With the barrage of headlines about nutrition in schools -- topped with Wednesday's announcement that major beverage distributors will stop selling sugary soda in public schools -- it seems some students are starting to listen.

An American Beverage Association study found that student purchases of regular soft drinks fell 24 percent between 2002 and 2004, while water, diet soda and sports drink sales shot up.

Weber-Appleton and a group of friends outside College Park High School on Wednesday said that, except for the occasional Jones Soda, they usually opt for water. Students at College Park can still buy soda on campus, but not for long. The Mt. Diablo district plans to drop it by next fall -- which is fine with these students.

"Once you don't drink soda for a while, it starts to taste like poison," said sophomore Kelsey O'Leary, 15.

The ban seems like a good idea to sophomore Sara Dolan, 15. "For sure, it's definitely smart."

The group concedes that soda remains the beverage of choice for many fellow students. One friend, they said, drinks something like eight a day and gets a headache if she doesn't have one for breakfast.

The same study shows that, despite the decline, regular soda remains by far the most popular beverage on campus.

That's the kind of data that led California lawmakers, spurred by increases in childhood diabetes and obesity, to ban soft drinks in elementary and middle schools and to phase out soda in high schools by 2009.

California's laws seem to trump Wednesday's announcement that companies will stop selling soda in elementary and middle schools and sell only diet soda in high schools, said Phyllis Bramson-Paul, state Department of Education nutrition services director.

"They're voluntary standards, and California law is much stronger," she said.

Still, proponents hailed the agreement as a victory for schools nationwide.

"This is a bold step forward in the struggle to help 35 million young people lead healthier lives," former President Bill Clinton said at a news conference in New York. "This one policy can add years and years and years to the lives of a very large number of young people."

Clinton's foundation worked with the American Heart Association, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and the beverage industry on the agreement.

Participating beverage distributors including Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. promised to stop selling nondiet sodas in public high schools and to offer only unsweetened juice, low-fat milk and water in elementary and middle schools.

The companies agreed they would try to make the changes at 75 percent of the nation's public schools by the 2008-09 school year and at all public schools a year later.

Soda has been a particular target of those fighting obesity because of its caloric content and popularity among children.

"Soft drink companies for a long time have relied upon schools for gaining access to the youth market," said Pete Bucklin, a professor emeritus of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Some of the larger companies such as Coke and Pepsi have sole vendor contracts with schools, and the new regulations will pressure those companies to introduce healthier products if they want to keep the contracts, Bucklin said.

Bramson-Paul said a number of California high schools are banning soft drinks.

Some are finding it isn't an easy fix since students can often get soda and fast food down the street, and some schools report that soda vendors are cropping up on the sidewalks just off campus.

In response, some communities are looking at ways to ban soda sales near schools. Earlier this year, Contra Costa County Supervisor Mark DeSaulnier of Concord suggested battling childhood obesity by limiting fast-food restaurants near schools.

Some districts have run into protests. A Redding high school's students are lobbying to return soda to campus and are submitting a petition for a statewide ballot measure.

Schools have found that advance planning and good communication help ease the transition, Bramson-Paul said. "If ever a district goes in over the weekend and decides no soda starting Monday, that tends not to go well," she said.

In the Mt. Diablo school district, two high schools are soda-free and the other four campuses are set to join them this fall, said Kathleen Corrigan, director of food services. Students have had surprisingly little reaction, she said.

"I think they get a little more agitated when we start taking away snacks," she said.

These days, the schools sell a lot of sports drinks like Gatorade -- which raises its own nutrition concerns, she said -- and water and milk.

With the growing attention on nutrition in schools, the kids seem more aware of soda's hazards, she said.

"Maybe that's why they're not as resistant to that change," she speculated. "Every time you open the newspaper you see something."

Staff writer Blanca Torres and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

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Source: Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

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