Group targets fattening foods in schools

Schools are providing too many fattening foods and soft drinks to children, a Washington food-watchdog group warned yesterday.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is encouraging parents and health advocates to push for nutritional changes by filing lawsuits and lobbying lawmakers for legislation.

The group, which has targeted pizza, movie-theater popcorn and ice cream sundaes in the past, released a school foods tool kit, mainly focusing on unhealthy foods sold through vending machines and in-school fund-raisers.

Rather than offer Oreo cookies, Coca-Cola soft drinks and Snickers candy bars, the report urged school systems to stock vending machines with granola bars, bottled water and fruit cups.

Parents and school administrators were encouraged to be more active in children’s nutrition by setting stricter standards for foods sold outside of the school lunch program. Some of the suggestions included banning soft drinks, limiting portion sizes, and setting fat content and calorie limits on snacks.

Several public schools across the country already have implemented pilot vending machine programs that replace junk foods with healthier options.

Thomas Wootton, Walter Johnson and Damascus high schools in Montgomery County began a similar pilot program this semester.

The schools have added more 100-percent fruit juices and bottled water slots to their soda vending machines and raised soda prices to $1.25, compared with water or fruit juice prices at $1.

They also will put snack foods with certain fat and calorie limits in vending machines by early October, said Kathy Lazor, director for Montgomery County Public Schools’ Division of Food and Nutrition Services.

“The goal is to track vending machine dollars and see what buying changes result from the program,” Ms. Lazor said.

The large variety of high-calorie foods and drinks in schools has greatly contributed to the soaring childhood-obesity rate in America, said CSPI’s nutrition policy director Margo Wootan.

About 16 percent of children and adolescents nationwide are obese, up from about 7 percent in 1976, according to the American Obesity Association.

Ms. Wootan said she expected more state legislators to follow New York City and California’s lead in banning soft drinks from schools.

New York City, Los Angeles and Sacramento, Calif., have banned soda sales in city schools, while the state of California passed a bill banning soda sales in elementary schools and restricting them in middle schools.

If signed by California Gov. Gray Davis, the bill would be the first statewide soda ban in public schools.

Litigation also will play an important role, Ms. Wootan noted. “I believe you’ll see parents suing schools. They thought their kids were buying lunch, when in fact they were buying a Coke and Cheetos,” and becoming obese, she said.

Two lawyers sent a legal notice to the Seattle Public School Board in July, threatening lawsuits if the board extended an exclusive pouring-rights contract with Coca-Cola Co. The board voted for a contract with several health provisions.

But more laws and lawsuits impede schools from making local decisions on behalf of parents, said Michael Barr, spokesman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, a Reston trade association for public school principals.

“When you start making federal or state guidelines, you remove the right of parents to make choices through the local community,” he said.