I love the new study reported in the journal Pediatrics. It confirms just what I have long expected. If you don’t expose kids to junk foods and sodas, they won’t eat as much and they won’t put on as much fat.
The study found that kids who go to schools where lots of junk foods are sold are heavier than those who go to schools in states with strict standards about the nutritional quality of snacks and drinks.
Even No-Brainers Tend to Become
Political Footballs in an Election Season
The investigators compared the body mass indices (BMIs) of kids in schools in 40 states with varying nutrition standards for what is allowed in “competitive” foods – those sold outside the lunch programs.
Kids from schools with stricter standards had lower BMIs.
The authors explain their result:
Experts argue that education will not suffice without changing the contemporary ‘obesogenic’ environment in which adolescents have countless sources of high-caloric-density, low-nutrient-density foods and beverages. Schools have become a source of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), candy, and other foods and beverages of minimal nutritional value.
Food Chemical News (August 14) reminds me that when Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, it authorized the USDA to develop nutrition standards both for meals – but also competitive foods.
The USDA issued final rules for school meals in January. (Remember the fuss over pizza is a vegetable?)
Its rules for competitive foods were sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget in mid-March, but they are still stuck there, most likely because the White House does not want to introduce regulations that might adversely affect food company sales during an election year, especially one in which the role of government is so prominent an issue.
This is an election year, in case you haven’t noticed, and it looks like it will be an especially unattractive one, unfortunately.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH is the author of many influential books, among them “Food Politics,” “Safe Food,” “What to Eat” and “Pet Food Politics.” She teaches as Professor in the Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health Department at New York University. You can e-mail her at food@sfchronicle.com and read her regular columns at www.sfgate.com/food.
This article was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle and has been posted on this blog with permission of the San Francisco Chronicle and the author.
The articles written by guest contributors are the sole responsibility of the individual writers in terms of factual accuracy and opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher of this blog.
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