Non-diet sodas to be pulled from public schools

[kwikdriver]

Tens of millions of students will no longer be able to buy non-diet sodas in the nation’s public schools under an agreement announced Wednesday between major beverage distributors and anti-obesity advocates.

The distributors, working with a joint initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, also have agreed to sell only water, juice and low-fat milks to elementary and middle schools, said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Clinton.

Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and the American Beverage Association have all signed onto the deal, Carson said, adding that the companies represent “a very significant market share.” The American Beverage Association represents the majority of school vending bottlers.

“It’s a bold and sweeping step that industry and childhood obesity advocates have decided to take together,” Carson said.

A man who answered the phone at Cadbury Schweppes’ London headquarters said no one was available for comment. Calls seeking comment from other distributors were not immediately returned early Wednesday.

Sporting events, plays also affected
Nearly 35 million students nationwide will be affected by the deal, The Alliance for a Healthier Generation said in a news release. The agreement affects all public schools who have contracts with the distributors.

The agreement applies to beverages sold on school grounds during the regular and extended school day, Carson said. After-school activities such as clubs, yearbook, band and choir practice won’t be able to purchase sugary drinks. But sales at events such as school plays, band concerts and sporting events, where a significant portion of the audience are adults, won’t be affected, he said.

The deal affects more than just school cafeterias and vending machines. Schools that use distributors to purchase soda for sales at sporting events and fundraisers will be subject to the new restrictions, too, Carson said.

How quickly the changes take hold will depend in part on individual school districts’ willingness to alter existing contracts, the release said. The companies will work to implement the changes at 75 percent of the nation’s public schools by the 2008-2009 school year, and at all schools a year later, the alliance said.

Many school districts around the country have already begun to replace soda and candy in vending machines with healthier items, and dozens of states have considered legislation on school nutrition this year.

The agreement follows an August decision by the American Beverage Association to adopt a policy limiting soft drinks in high schools to no more than 50 percent of the selections in vending machines. That recommendation was not binding.

Most elementary schools are already soda-free.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12604166/

[kyrasdad]

This is all to the good, although no one should consider it a significant breakthrough. The drinks being out of the schools is great, but I wonder how much of a dent it puts in kids consumption of Mountain Dew and the like? A good start, at any rate.

[kwikdriver]

This is all to the good, although no one should consider it a significant breakthrough. The drinks being out of the schools is great, but I wonder how much of a dent it puts in kids consumption of Mountain Dew and the like? A good start, at any rate.


Hopefully -- hopefully -- stuff like this will serve as a counter to the advertising and so on. So the idea is, not only do kids find it hard to get ahold of sugar water in school, but the fact that they can't get it there because it's bad for them might actually sink in. Next up is the homefront, a much more difficult nut to crack, but progress is progress.

[Nancy LC]

Sports drinks.... as if! Come on, they're just another way to sell sugar.

[Dodger]

have agreed to sell only water, juice and low-fat milks to elementary and middle schoolsWhen I was in elementary/middle school, only full-fat milk was used by the schools. The number of obese students in the entire school could be counted on one hand.

[Nancy LC]

We didn't having vending machines when I was in school. I think our only choice was milk, probably full-fat at the time.

[kyrasdad]

I meant to comment on the juice. In terms of sugar content juice can have as much sugar as a Coke. But at least it has some other redeeming values. One being that people don't tend to chain drink it like they do cola. I am guilty of the chain drinking myself, although it's with Diet Coke.

[potatofree]

It's not turbocharged with the combo of caffeine (which should probably go too) and HFCS like soda either.

It'll be a matter of time until somebody tries to sue because artificial sweeteners might make their kid grow a third arm or something, though.

[ItsTheWooo]

I must sheepishly raise my hand and confess my carb days were spent chain drinking fruit juice. Mom would buy a gallon jug and this would be my primary fluid source. Although, to be fair, the juice had sugar added so it wasn't really natural, but technically it was juice. I LOVED juice.

God... what was I thinking.
It's hard to imagine there was a time I din't realize juice made you hungry.

[potatofree]

A lot of kids will drink juice non-stop if you let them. That's one reason pediatricians don't push the juice anymore. The only drink a baby needs other than breast milk or formula is water.

Way back when my kids were little, juice was the be-all and end-all of health. To this day, Steven will guzzle orange juice like there's no tomorrow if I let him, and finds plain water an insult to his palate. :lol: What he hasn't noticed yet is I've been diluting the juice with more and more water to see just how "weak" I can get away with making it. He got a little bottle of plain OJ the other day and thought there was something terribly wrong with it. It was WAY too sweet, he said. ;)

I don't know if taking the sugar sodas away from the kids will do much good, but it's SOMETHING. Okay, something like washing down a Big Mac and Fries with a diet soda when you see what else is on the lunch tray, but.....

[kwikdriver]

I don't know if taking the sugar sodas away from the kids will do much good, but it's SOMETHING. Okay, something like washing down a Big Mac and Fries with a diet soda when you see what else is on the lunch tray, but.....

I think one of the things people here forget is that weight gain, for most people, is a gradual thing. Some of us have been fat our entire lives, even morbidly obese, and in order to do something about that we have to take drastic steps. But for most people smaller steps, like just getting rid of sugared up drinks, is enough to prevent a few pounds of weight gain a year. The food pyramid is a favorite whipping boy around here, and in many ways rightly so, but for the average person the food pyramid would be a reasonable plan, and certainly an improvement over what they are already eating. So yes, this isn't ideal, I'd like to see them ban juices and even milk for that matter, but given current attitudes in this country that isn't going to happen. A step in the right direction is better than no step at all.

[potatofree]

Even if it only keeps them from washing their systems in sugar for a few hours of the day, it might help. It would be too much to ask for the soda companies to just say "Oh, I guess we don't need to mine the captive schoolkid audience for $$$... lets just pull out altogether."

[kebaldwin]

My kids are in elementary school -- so this appears to do nothing. Most kids eating free at my kids school have

1. pancakes, doughnuts, muffin, french toast, etc
2. syrup for above if it's not already covered in sugar
3. biscuit or grits
4. slice of bread
5. carton of fruit juice and carton of chocolate milk

NOTE that this is every morning and similar lunch. Plus one similar snack at school. I would imagine that they get a similar snack and dinner at home.

Eliminating sodas at my kids school will make no difference.

[kyrasdad]

But for most people smaller steps, like just getting rid of sugared up drinks, is enough to prevent a few pounds of weight gain a year. The food pyramid is a favorite whipping boy around here, and in many ways rightly so, but for the average person the food pyramid would be a reasonable plan, and certainly an improvement over what they are already eating. So yes, this isn't ideal, I'd like to see them ban juices and even milk for that matter, but given current attitudes in this country that isn't going to happen. A step in the right direction is better than no step at all.

To expand on that, I have a buddy who got fat in the 1990's. He was tall, about 6'4", but got to 280-290 chain-drinking Pepsi. He just decided to drop the Pepsi, and drink unsweetened ice tea. He dropped to 230, a pretty reasonable weight for his height, which he hasn't budged much from. He eats pasta, pizza, bread, fries, etc. He eats sugary treats once in a while, but typically not. Eliminating sweets and sodas has done it for him. It wouldn't do it for me. I'd been drinking Diet Coke for a decade and gained dozens of pounds at the same time. I have to reduce carbs to a very low level to lose or maintain my weight. Not everyone does.

That doesn't mean his heavily processed food diet is all that healthy from an overall nutritional standpoint, but from a weightloss perspective, it works for him.

My problem with the food pyramid is that it isn't useful at all for the obese, and it encourages the kind of creeping weight gain you describe that bedevils most people. It is better than the typical diet, but only for a person who isn't obese or heading that direction. Also, but putting so much grain in the diet, it practically encourages the eating of processed foods. Anyone who cuts out processed foods is going to find it difficult to eat a lot of grain-based product. Its fat phobia is to be expected.

I've always felt the USDA ought to get out of the business of advising people how to eat. That really belongs in the FDA, or elsewhere. The USDA's mission is to promote and assist farmers. They will always have that filter on how they advise people.

[PS Diva]

Because the "experts" still don't agree as to what is a good nutritional diet, I wish the vending machines weren't in school at all! When did we get to the point where we think a kid can't make it for a few hours without constant snacking? I'm talking about normal healthy kids who have parents who carry a snack everywhere they go, starting with Cheerios for the toddlers, to snacks provided at an hour and a half long scout meeting! Why does food have to be part of every event? And since it does, it is always easy food, like chips and soda.

In ancient times when I was in Nursery School I remember we were served snacks. It was one small saltine or graham cracker and half a dixie cup of juice. Maybe in light of what we know about diet today that wasn't the best of snacks either, but it was such a small helping compared to what my kids get fed everywhere they go these days.