Ban Soda in New York State Public Schools - Resource Page - Ithaca, Dryden, Lansing, Tompkins County, NYS

This collection of links should provide intellectual tinder to help fuel letters to your local Board of Education, State Assembly, State Senate and so forth. Please make your letters intelligent and accurate. There is a partial list of local and NYS email addresses at the bottom of this page (scroll down). School Board links and email addresses

UC Berkeley Report Evaluates Implementation of Landmark Legislation
that Established Nutrition Standards for School Foods and Beverages

The full report is available at www.cnr.berkeley.edu/cwh/activities/LEAF.shtml

Berkeley Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health have just made available the complete report on the evaluation of the pilot program mandated by California Senate Bills 19 and 56, the Pupil Nutrition, Health and Achievement Act of 2001 which established nutrition standards for snack foods and beverages sold on school campuses. "Senate Bill 19 was landmark legislation that stimulated a wave of similar legislative action in California and across the country," said Pat Crawford, principal investigator of the study and co-director of the UC Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health. "This evaluation of the bill's pilot program could not have come at a better time, given that school districts and state and federal governments alike are struggling to develop and implement similar regulations."

Citing Obesity Rates, Hartford Plans to Ban School Sales of Sugary Drinks

By STACEY STOWE
Published: February 2, 2006 in the NY Times
[ original article ]

HARTFORD, Feb. 1— Citing concerns about a national epidemic of childhood obesity, Gov. M. Jodi Rell and legislative leaders announced an agreement on Wednesday to ban the sale of soda and other sugary drinks in the state's public schools.

"This is the best and strongest bill in terms of standards for nutritious beverages in the country," said Donald E. Williams Jr., a Democrat who is Senate president pro tem and a sponsor of the bill.

Mr. Williams said the proposal would make Connecticut the only state to restrict vending-machine sales of those drinks in elementary, middle and high school. The sales would still be allowed at concession stands at school-sponsored events on weekends or after school.

The agreement is a compromise between the Republican governor and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. Last year, Mrs. Rell vetoed a broader bill that would have restricted the sale of some snack foods, required at least 20 minutes a day of vigorous exercise in elementary schools, and ordered schools to meet nutritional guidelines set by the state's Department of Education.

Mrs. Rell said the gym component would have forced schools to hire additional teachers that they could not afford, and she objected to ordering schools to comply with the nutritional guidelines.

Schools can improve nutrition without sacrificing revenue

Berkeley -- When schools kick high sugar sodas and high fat chips off their campuses, food service department revenues tend to increase, according to a new report by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The findings, released today (Friday, April 22, 2005) by UC Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health, provide encouraging news to school officials concerned about the budgetary hit they might take if they eliminate junk food from school grounds.

"Our results show that when kids have less access to high fat, high sugar snack foods and beverages, they will switch to healthier meals," said Patricia Crawford, co-director of UC Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health and co-author of the report. "This trend can benefit the students' health as well as the school food service department's bottom line."

The conclusion comes from a fiscal analysis of 16 middle and high schools in nine school districts in California that participated in a pilot program called Linking Education, Activity and Food (LEAF). The Nutrition Services Division of the California Department of Education established the LEAF program with funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture to pilot test the implementation of Senate bills 19 and 56 (SB 19/56).

The state education department contracted with UC Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health to evaluate the impact on schools that implemented SB 19/56. The fiscal analysis is the first in a series of evaluation reports on the LEAF program to be produced by the center, which is based at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources. [ source of article ]

Making It Happen - School Nutrition Success Stories

Making It Happen – School Nutrition Success Stories tells the stories of 32 such schools and school districts from across the United States. K-12 schools, reflecting broad diversity in geographical location and demographics of the communities served, implemented innovative approaches to improve the nutritional quality of foods and beverages sold outside of federal meal programs. Making It Happen is a joint project of Team Nutrition of the Food and Nutrition Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Division of Adolescent and School Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and is supported by the United States Department of Education (ED).

A key insight from Making It Happen is that students will buy and consume healthful foods and beverages—and schools can make money from selling healthful options. Of the 17 schools and school districts that reported income data, 12 increased their revenue as a result of the changes and four reported no change.

The Maine Department of Education and the Maine Nutrition Network are excited to announce the completion of The Maine Guide: Supporting Healthy Changes in School Nutrition Environments funded through a USDA Team Nutrition Training Grant.

The Maine Guide showcases the process that the State of Maine developed for improving nutrition and physical activity environments in schools. With the overall goal of improving both children's health and their academic achievement, Maine used the USDA Team Nutrition's Changing the Scene Toolkit to develop its own approach to combating the obesity epidemic and enhancing school performance.

In this guide, you will find: Our plan for training school teams from around the State of Maine and a detailed description of Maine's Changing the Scene summits and the successes and challenges that we encountered. The Guide is located on the Maine Nutrition Network website.

USDA Local Wellness Policy Web Site
http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/Healthy/wellnesspolicy.html

To help combat childhood obesity, Congress passed a law requiring each local educational agency participating in USDA's school meals programs to establish a local wellness policy by the beginning of School Year 2006-2007.

Congress recognizes that schools play a critical role in creating a healthy environment for the prevention of childhood obesity, creating a healthy environment for combating problems associated with poor nutrition and physical activity. The law places the responsibility of developing a wellness policy at the local level so the individual needs of each school district can be [ more ]

"COCA-COLA'S MARKETING PRACTICES RIVAL BIG TOBACCO"

The American Postal Workers Union has passed a resolution: "that the United States Postal Service remove all Coca-Cola products from all postal facilities." The resolution was passed in response to Coca-Cola's

heavy marketing to children, including schools, and the company's recent denial of negative health effects associated with consumption of sugar-laced sodas. In a recent letter to educationnews.org, the Coca-Cola company went so far as to claim that soft drinks have no connection whatsoever to obesity or diabetes. In the manner of Big Tobacco, John Alm, Coca-Cola's chief operating officer, was quoted in the Atlanta Journal as saying, "The school system is where you build brand loyalty." Coca-Cola's 2003 Management Financial Review document speaks out against "Laws that restrict our ability to distribute products in schools." Learn more...

Back To School -- Junk Food Equals Big Profits, Minus Healthy Kids

Everyone has assumed that schools can only raise funds in vending machines and similar venues if they sell low-nutrition foods. However, as schools are making improvements to their food and beverage offerings, many are finding that they can raise funds without undermining children's diets and health.

We know of 14 schools around the country (in California, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, and Pennsylvania) that have measured revenue before and after improving the nutritional quality of their foods, and not one of them lost money. While this far from a national study, it is a clear and encouraging pattern. See http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/school_vending_machine_case_studies.pdf for a list and description of what they have done.

And in the long run, it certainly makes no sense to fund schools at the expense of children's diets and health. As a society we are sure to spend more money treating the resulting obesity, diabetes, and osteoporosis than schools could ever hope to raise by selling junk food to children.

It's encouraging that schools are able to fund important programs in ways that support both education and health. Let us know if you hear of other examples.

Margo Wootan, D.Sc.
Center for Science in the Public Interest

Action for Healthy Kids
Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) is a nationwide initiative dedicated to improving the health and educational performance of children through better nutrition and physical activity in schools. This effort represents a response to our nation's epidemic of overweight, sedentary, and undernourished children and adolescents. Healthy schools produce healthy students -- and healthy students are better able to learn and achieve their true potential. An outgrowth of the 2002 Healthy Schools Summit, AFHK is composed of 51 State Teams and a national coordinating and resource group. AFHK fosters sharing and collaboration among diverse stakeholders to encourage and facilitate meaningful change in schools. Guidance and direction is provided by more than 35 national organizations and government agencies representing education, health, physical activity and nutrition.

CSPI On Banning Soda Sales In L.A. Schools
Statement of Margo G. Wootan, Director of Nutrition Policy

"We congratulate the Los Angeles Unified School District for promoting the health of their students by stopping the sale of soda in its schools. More school districts should be actively fighting childhood obesity, and not encouraging it by striking deals with soda companies.

We sympathize with cash-strapped public schools. But schools that are bridging their budget gaps by peddling soda and snack foods are doing so at the expense of their students’ health.

It doesn’t make sense to promote nutrition in the classroom but promote junk food in the cafeteria. We hope more school boards follow L.A.’s lead."

Prevention Institute
"Schools have become a place where kids have unlimited access to unhealthy products. Soft drink companies have targeted schools for exclusive marketing contracts which prominently feature their products and sometimes lead administrators to promote sales in order to increase revenue for the schools.vii Fast food chains or their products have become a regular part of the lunchtime offerings in many California high schools.viii School contracts with corporations like Pepsi or Coca-Cola encourage students to drink soda and are often part of a larger campaign by corporations to establish brand loyalty at a young age."

California Center for Public Health Advocacy
There was unanimous agreement among Panel members that the time has come to establish reasonable standards for competitive foods sold on school campuses. The Panel recommended the establishment of mandatory minimum standards for elementary and secondary schools, addressing beverages, fat and saturated fat, sugar, portion sizes, and the availability of fruits and vegetables. The Panel's recommendations are guided by the following common-sense ideas: (See Web Site)

Soft Drinks Undermining Americans’ Health
Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of CSPI, said, "Many teens are drowning in soda pop. It’s become their main beverage, providing many with 15% to 20% of all their calories and squeezing out more-nutritious foods and beverages from their diets. It’s time that parents limited their children’s soft-drink consumption and demanded that local schools get rid of their soft-drink vending machines, just as they have banished smoking."

The Food Politics Website
Featuring Marion Nestle's new book; Food Politics "We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health."

California Project LEAN
"Osteoporosis is a major public health threat for 28 million Americans, 80 percent of whom are women. In the U.S. today, 10 million individuals already have the disease and 18 million more have low bone mass, placing them at increased risk for osteoporosis."

Save Harry (from "liquid candy")
"This is a good one for kids - it has a form you can fill out and then automatically emails several places to get the message out"

School Age Nutrition Resource Page

School Board links ...