ESSAY # 4-Second try

Sheri Munson-Castro
Writing 101-Winter 2008
Essay #4
Craig McKenny-Instructor
March 6, 2008




Sugar High, Goodbye: Banning Junk Food & Soda from School





My son Francisco is a sixteen year old teenage boy who is a ninth grade student at Chief Sealth High School located in West Seattle. He is a young man that weighs almost two hundred and fifty pounds who has had weight issues all his life. Though his weight is not causing him problems now he has some trouble with some of his activates like playing tennis, walking up stairs, hills or even walking fast/jogging.

One of the central factor in his weight gain has been the accessive eatting of junk foods. While he is trying to reduce the intake of it, its has not easy with him having so readliy a supply available to him at the school. This will become problematic later in life with our family health history.

With all of the this easy access to junk food it has been even harder for him to stay away from it, as there are about six (6) machines at his school. The one good thing about this is that at least half of them have healthy items, while the other half are full of junk products. From what I have learned from the Seattle School District is that there use to be double that amount. They also informed me that with the rise on the numbers of overweight kids in the school, that they had found off their research, it prompt them to implemented a change on the Pyramid plan for the school nutrition.

I was also informed that there had also been a change in some of the vendors that they are using to provide snacks for the students. There are now only two (2) out of the four (4) machines that are pure junk per say.

The soaring levels of childhood obesity in American children have prompted an expert panel to recommend new nutritional standards for the nation's schools. Banning junk food from schools is being seen as the first step in attacking the obesity crisis in children. Sedentary lifestyle practices coupled with a shift in diet to junk foods are the main reason behind this explosion of overweight or obese children. Obesity is linked to the so-called lifestyle diseases like type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, heart disease, poor self-esteem, and a lower health-related quality of life.

The rate of type 2 diabetes is at an all-time high in American children. In September last year a report by the Institute of Medicine had criticized the efforts to tackle child obesity. The report said although many measures were in place they were proving ineffective. Childhood obesity is a growing menace to the society. In recent years, this epidemic has risen alarmingly. That is why the Congress requested the IOM and the CDC to review prevailing food standards and recommend guidelines to make them healthier.

Per one of the studies on the subject has shown that Schools who back in the 1980's first allowed the access of junk food to help increase the revenue have after coming to understand their part in the rise of health issues in children have started to implement changes into the schools.

They have already banned or limited the sale of fizzy drinks following a deal between major companies and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation in May 2006. The Alliance is a joint venture of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association.

In the debates that I had found showed that the government panel made up of House and Senate lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to reduce junk food in schools by requiring that any food and drinks sold on campuses, including in vending machines, meet the same federal nutritional standards as food served in the cafeteria.

The measure would also force the Agriculture Department to rewrite its 30-year-old nutritional guidelines for schools to limit the amount of sugar, fat and sodium, as well as portion sizes, in response to a growing obesity epidemic among children.

According to an early December New York Times Article, federal lawmakers were considering a national ban as well on the selling junk food in school vending machines. The measure, which was an amendment to the farm bill, faced significant hurdles before this beneficial change could become a reality. Federal lawmakers are considering the broadest effort ever to limit what children eat: a national ban on selling candy, sugary soda and salty, fatty food in school snack bars, vending machines and à la carte cafeteria lines.

Whether the measure, an amendment to the farm bill, would survive the convoluted politics that bogged down that legislation in the Senate is one issue. Whether it could survive the battle among factions in the fight to improve school food was another.

Unfortunely no such luck on either side, because on Thursday, December 13, 2007, the Senate dropped the amendment. According to a December 15, 2007 Washington Post Article The Senate on Thursday night dropped an amendment to the farm bill that would have banned fatty foods and high-calorie beverages at school snack bars, stores and vending machines, dealing a blow to its chances of passage.

The National School Nutrition Standards Amendment, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), would have been the first legislation to update the nutrition standards since 1979, a period in which scientific opinion on what foods are appropriate has drastically shifted.

"There are many reasons for this public health crisis, but one big reason is that our nation's schools have become inundated with junk food and sugary drinks," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a chief sponsor of the bill. A Government Accountability Office study last year found that 99 percent of high schools, 97 percent of middle schools and 83 percent of elementary schools have vending machines, school stores or snack bars that sell mostly unhealthy snacks and drinks.

One Report that I saw was in regards to:
USDA AWARDS $2.5 MILLION FOR RESEARCH ON FOOD AND NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
USDA News Release:
Washington, Oct. 24, 2007—Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner today announced $2.5 million in grant and cooperative agreement awards in ten states and the District of Columbia for research on food and nutrition assistance.
"USDA administers 15 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs that work to provide a nutritional safety net for children and low-income adults" said Conner. "Sound research helps these programs continue to operate effectively and efficiently."
The goal of the research is to examine, evaluate, and enhance USDA's food and nutrition assistance programs. The grants and cooperative agreements will fund projects in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Utah.

Another was on: USDA news release;
CENTER FOR NUTRITION POLICY AND PROMOTION
Washington, Nov. 19, 2007 -- Agriculture Under Secretary Nancy Johner for Food,Nutrition and Consumer Services today announced the appointment of Dr. BrianWansink as the Executive Director of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion(CNPP). Dr. Wansink currently serves as the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and the Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
“Dr. Wansink is nationally recognized in his field of nutrition research which focuses on how to encourage consumers to eat more nutritiously and better control how much they eat,” said Johner. “Dr. Wansink’s work has been featured in national print and broadcast media. We feel quite fortunate in having Dr. Wansink join our team here at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and look forward to working with him.”

At CNPP Dr. Wansink will be responsible for overseeing the planning, development and review of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the food pyramid known as MyPyramid.gov, and programs including the Healthy Eating Index, the USDA Food Plans, the Nutrient Content of the U.S. Food Supply, and the cost of raising a child.
In the state of California; Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill in September that would raise nutritional standards -- limiting the amount of calories and sugar -- and ban the sale of soda in all California. They had also implemented another law that had just passed not allowing any soda and sugary drinks in the elementary and middle schools.


There is some debating going on to see if the law for reducing or taking junk food all the way out of school will pass the congress. Which if it does could be implemented across the nation. The new federal proposal is backed by the Parent Teacher Association, the School Nutrition Association, the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and other health-related groups

The measure is sponsored in the House by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. The sponsors predicted the bill would be approved, although it may not get a vote in Congress during this busy election year. Woolsey noted: "A bill that has bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate is rare, indeed, these days, but that's what we have here."

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.

Many parents are behind this law being approved and implemented across the board. So many children have weight issues going on as well as the fact per the research going on may be effecting their learning abilities as well. I personally feel that by reducing the intake that children have we will help to reduce the number of them that diagnose with diabetic issues, obesity problems as well as may increase the number of children who are doing well in school. Because by taking them off that “Sugar High”, they actually may pay attention and intake more of the knowledge that is being taught to them by their teachers.

Resources: On the positive as well as the negative sides of Banning Junk Food in School:

1.) http://www.newslocale.org/health/hnews/banning_junk_food_in_schools_first_step_in_tacking_child_obesity_20070427306.html

2.) http://www.calendow.org/uploadedFiles/banning_junk_food_soda_sales.pdf A article regarding the banning of Junk Food across the nation.


3.) http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9903/25/child.food.pyramid/index.html

4.) http://www.scn.org/cccs/v5n4.pdf
articles on money matters-food contracts, etc. Regarding the money made by the school in the sales of food/drink to kids. Thats helps to suport the schools.

5.) Link to the current bill: Bill Summary and Status the report on the bill that present and denied for the moment in regards to banning junk food in schools.