NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Robert Weissman (202) 387-8030
For Immediate Release: April 25th, 2007
Commercial Alert Comment on the Institute of Medicine's Nutrition in Schools Report
Today, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued science-based nutrition standards for foods sold in schools. The report confirms what any parent knows: Schools should not be selling junk food, period.
Responding to the growing obesity epidemic among children—and associated risks for serious health concerns such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and elevated cholesterol and blood pressure levels—the report recommends not only that junk food be excluded from the cafeteria line, but that vending machines, snack bars and other food provision options in schools be limited to relatively healthy foods.
Addressing the problem of providing quality school food is no longer a scientific problem, if it ever was. It is now a political problem.
The steps forward are clear.
First, the Department of Agriculture should enforce its own competitive foods rule, which prohibits public schools from selling “foods of minimal nutritional value” during mealtimes in school cafeterias.
In response to a petition from Commercial Alert, it has refused to do so.
Second, proposals by Senators Tom Harkin (D – IA) and Lisa Murkowski (R– AK) to improve school nutrition standards should be adopted immediately. The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2007 would update standards, and apply them to food sold outside school meal programs, on the school campus, at any time during the school day. This is the vehicle for mandatory rules to implement the Institute of Medicine recommendations.
Four years ago, then-President of Coca-Cola Enterprises, John Alm, said flatly, “The school system is where you build brand loyalty.”
The grain of truth in that abhorrent remark is that behaviors learned in school do affect kids for the rest of their lives.
Schools can be tough on kids. But they should be sanctuaries from predatory peddlers of sugar and fat. Our kids should come home with report cards, not heart disease.
It’s past time for junk food to be expelled from our public schools.