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Clinton Deal Cuts School Snack Foods
Janey Thornton, president of the School Nutrition Association and a child nutrition director in Kentucky, called the program commendable, but said it shouldn't be seen as a substitute for federal legislation enacting stronger health standards for school food.
"It has to have some enforcement behind it," she said. "We have some pretty strict regulations here in Kentucky, but some states have none, and that's where I think the problem comes in."
  Former President Bill Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Wayne, Pa., Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006, held for Democrat Joe Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral running for Congress. (AP Photo/H. Rumph Jr) (H. Rumph R - AP) Save & Share |
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The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group, said the agreement would lack punch if schools and vending machine companies decide to keep buying chips and candy.
The food guidelines set under the agreement were more widely praised.
Under the rules, snacks marketed to schools wouldn't get more than 35 percent of their calories from fat and more than 10 percent from saturated fat. There will be a limit of 35 percent for sugar content by weight.
Those rules would mean students in participating schools would have to say goodbye to Nacho Doritos (a product of a PepsiCo subsidiary), which get a little less than half of their calories from fat, and the Mars Milky Way bar, which is about 60 percent sugar.
The agreement was the product of work by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association.
In May, the alliance announced an agreement with beverage industry leaders to sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat and nonfat milk in elementary and middle schools.
The problem the group is attacking is one that was born in the mid-1980s, when money-strapped schools across the country began opening their doors to private vendors, and offering a wider variety of foods _ letting many millions of students sate their hunger and thirst with chips and soda, rather than what was on the school lunch menu.
Winning those kids back over to healthy food might be a tough task.
Children pouring out of a Harlem elementary school a few blocks from where Clinton spoke Friday carried bags of chips, sodas and containers of greasy cheese fries, along with their books.
"Junk food is great," said 13-year-old Victor Jimenez.
Carlos Rodriguez, 13, said his school already stocks its vending machines with health food _ but it hardly matters.
"Kids will buy what they want," he said. "We just stop by the bodega on the way home."
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On the Net:
William J. Clinton Foundation: http:/
American Heart Association: http:/
