Congress is debating the Child Nutrition Reauthorizaton (a bill that sets the rules for school lunches) right now! Please write your Representative and BOTH of your Senators to ask for the following:
1. Regulate "competitive foods." Competitive foods are all foods served or sold in schools that are not part of the federally reimbursable school breakfast or lunch. While there are strict requirements on what you can serve for breakfast or lunch, there are practically NO rules over competitive foods.
2. Eliminate the "time and place" rule and have the same set of rules for ALL foods sold in schools. Currently, you can't serve "foods of minimal nutritional value" in the cafeteria during lunch. But you can serve them everywhere else in the school all the time, and during the cafeteria as long as it's not lunch time.
3. Update standards for "foods of minimal nutritional value." The current standards define a few foods (like chewing gum, marshmallows, and cotton candy) as "foods of minimal nutritional value" - anything else is OK. Snickers? Well, it has peanuts and that's nutritious, right? Milky way? M&Ms? Chocolate has antioxidants. Those are nutrients. That's how the rules are currently. This MUST change. Let's have the Institute of Medicine update which foods are defined as "foods of minimal nutritional value."
4. Increase the reimbursement rate for school breakfasts and lunches. Currently, schools get about $2.50 per kid per lunch, but they spend more than that. In a recent Senate hearing, a school lunch director asked for $.35 more per kid per lunch. Right now, most of the money pays for equipment and labor, and only $1.00 pays for food. You can't get very healthy food for $1. By one teacher's account the kids get crap for lunch and they throw much of it away. Kids from families with low incomes even choose to go hungry instead of eating the nasty food served at lunch. Money spent on crappy food is money wasted. We should spend enough on lunches to buy good food.
5. Remove branded products from schools. Currently, the American Beverage Association is getting praise for its voluntary pledge to serve only low-calorie and reduced serving size options in schools, including healthy choices milk, water, and juice. But they are still cultivating brand loyalty among the kids - and basically communicating to the kids that their products have the schools' stamps of approval. What happens when the kids go OUTSIDE of school and see the same brands - but in full size, full calorie versions? We need to take marketing out of schools. It's a place of learning, and should not be treated as a captive audience for hooking lifelong consumers.
6. Fund the Farm to School program. A Farm to School program was created by the government YEARS ago - but never funded. Farm to school programs support local farms and teach children to like fresh fruits and vegetables while providing them with healthy foods. It's a win-win. Let's fund it!
7. Provide schools grant money to update their kitchen equipment. Schools are often not ABLE to serve healthy foods because they lack any equipment to prepare them. Due to limited budgets, many have stripped out kitchens or they were built without kitchens in the first place. Without kitchen equipment, often they are limited to less healthy foods because all they can do is warm food up.
8. Don't serve whole milk in schools. School age children should be drinking low fat and non-fat milk, not whole milk.
9. Don't allow foods made with artificial food dyes in schools. These foods are proven to cause behavioral problems in children. Other countries have already started banning them. Why do we allow them in schools, where children are supposed to be learning?
10. Make the WIC program an entitlement. The WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) is actually a GREAT program! But if everyone who was eligible for it tried to participate, they wouldn't be able to because Congress doesn't appropriate enough money for that. Let's make it an entitlement, which means everyone who is eligible will be provided for in our budgets. |
