What
our children need is a common-sense approach that calls for more
physical activity and better nutrition education, not food police.
Overview
of the Negative Implications of Public School Nutrition
Policies That
Restrict Student Food Choices
From
Texas to Connecticut, state legislators are working on education
initiatives to better our public schools and to fund them. As they
debate these critical issues, their attention must also focus on
new and proposed policies that will rob public schools of desperately
needed funds.
In
many states, legislators are unaware of existing policies that address
what children eat and drink at school. Take, for example, the nutrition
guidelines recently announced by the Texas Department of Agriculture.
Effective August 1, 2004, the revised Texas Public School Nutrition
Policy will significantly restrict the foods available on school
grounds and in the cafeterias, with potentially drastic financial
consequences for Texas public schools.
Simply
put, the nutrition policy adopted by Texas, and being closely watched
by other states, imposes additional financial burdens on already
cash-strapped public schools. Below is an overview of the negative
implications of the Texas public school nutrition policy. Legislators,
both within and outside of Texas, should carefully review and consider
these implications as they seek to find ways to fulfill their states
obligation to fund public education. A nutrition policy like the
one adopted in Texas will hurt the financial bottom line of far
too many schools, ultimately hurting the very students it is intended
to help and will only add to forced deficits and spell further disaster
for public school financing.
The
new guidelines can be viewed by clicking
here. If the food police have their way, gone are the days of
pizza parties and birthday cakes in Texas classrooms that
is unless school official specifically approve the event as one
of just three annual events per school year allowed under the new
rules. Festive sprinkles, candy hearts and jelly beans can no longer
garnish cupcakes or cookies, assuming those latter sweet treats
can even be offered at all with stringent restrictions on foods
containing refined or added sugar and trans fat. "Foods of
Minimal Nutritional Value," which include soda water, water
ices (any "
sicles"), chewing gum and most candies,
are outlawed or subject to time-and-place restrictions.
While
far too many foods are banned under the policy, even more are severely
restricted by both serving size and how often they may be offered.
For example, at elementary schools, French fries may not exceed
a 3 ounce serving, may not be offered more than once per week, and
students may only purchase one serving at a time. In fact, beginning
in the 2005-06 school year, frying as a cooking method must be eliminated
altogether.
No
food is safe from being targeted under the policy. Only skim, 1
percent and 2 percent milk may be served, and flavored milk is allowed
only if it contains no more than 30 grams total sugar per 8 ounce
serving. If fresh fruits are not available, frozen or canned may
be offered, but only if packed in natural juice, water or light
syrup. Schools may not serve items that contain more than 28 grams
of fat per serving more than twice a week, reducing it to 23 grams
per serving by the 2006-07 school year.
No
state should dictate to local school districts their food service
policies. Local school districts must be empowered with the authority
to decide these issues for themselves, in the best interests of
their students and their financial situation.
The
Center for Individual Freedom is a non-profit, non-partisan constitutional
advocacy group that works to protect and defend individual freedom
and individual rights in the legal, legislative and educational
arenas. As a result, the Center is particularly concerned with the
education our children receive in classrooms across the country
and the increasing threat of government policies on local school
districts.
There
is no simple solution to childhood obesity, certainly not one that
is universally and unilaterally imposed. What our children need
is a common-sense approach that calls for more physical activity
and better nutrition education, not food police.
Costly
Budgetary Considerations of the Texas Policy
- Many schools
will have to outlay cash for costly equipment changes as more
ovens will have to be purchased to replace the deep fryers abolished
under the new policy. Beginning in the 2005-06 school year,
frying as a cooking method must be eliminated altogether.
- Food scales
and other equipment will need to be added in order for cafeteria
workers to comply with the nutrition policy, because while far
too many foods are banned under the policy, even more are severely
restricted by serving size and how often certain foods may be
offered. For example, at all schools, French fries may not exceed
a 3-ounce serving, may not be offered more than once per week,
and students may only purchase one serving at a time. After
2005-06 school year, French "fries" will have to be
baked instead of fried.
- Reports
indicate that schools lose $3.25 a day per student in federal
funds each time a student doesn't eat from the lunch line. Texas'
total deficit in 2001 was $23.7 million and more recent estimates
from the Comptrollers Office put the losses close to $60
million. With potentially greater numbers of students opting
next fall to "brown-bag-it" or leave campus for their
meals, already suffering school lunch programs stand to lose
a lot more.
- Worse yet,
critical federal tax money could be withheld from schools that
fail to meet the rigorous daily mandates, as the nutrition policy
permits the Texas Department of Agriculture, as administrator
of the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program
and After School Snack Program, "to disallow all meal reimbursement
for the day and require the school to reimburse the food service
account for the lost reimbursement" when violations of
the policy are noted.
- Even elementary
school fundraising projects that involve food are on the chopping
block, not to mention the middle and high school food fundraisers
that will have to meet tough nutrition standards and bow to
time-and-place limitations.
- The funds
local school districts stand to lose as a result of this new
policy will have a devastating effect on after-school activities,
ironically, many of which are the very programs that energize
and enable children to exercise and stay fit.
- Under the
new nutrition policy, most schools wont be able to make
up financial shortfalls with vending machine contracts, revenue
from which many schools are dependent upon to pay for instructional
programs and materials and to support extracurricular activities.
The Texas Department of Agricultures own records request
resulted in reports from 932 of Texas 1256 public schools,
showing that these contracts generate more than $54 million
a year. It is unclear how lost revenues will be replaced if
vending machines are removed from school cafeterias or if their
access is otherwise limited by time-and-place restrictions.
- Instead
of spending education dollars on programs that will educate
the students about nutrition and making healthier food choices,
Texas tax dollars will have to be spent on educating cafeteria
workers who will be sent back to school to learn to read and
decipher complicated food labels. Take, for example, the requirement
that schools may not serve items that contain more than 28 grams
of fat per serving more than twice a week, to be reduced to
23 grams per serving by the 2006-07 school year.
Legal
Consequences of the Texas Nutrition Policy
- Lawmakers
must consider and be concerned with the apparent legal consequences
of the nutrition policy. The role of public schools is to educate,
not dictate. The states schools should not be policing
childrens eating habits. They should be educating them
about nutrition, while leading them toward healthy food choices
and self-control. Policies that dictate, rather than offer suggestions,
may assuage the food polices concerns, but they also place
Texas squarely in a legal line of fire. By dictating the healthy
food menus, the nutrition policy baits the hook for any trial
lawyer who can find a school child harmed by the mandated food
choices should they not go far enough or go too far.
- On campuses
with open-door lunchtimes, more high school students may opt
to venture off-campus to eat, quickly dashing to their favorite
restaurant or convenience store to purchase items they cannot
get in school cafeterias, while putting themselves at increased
risk for personal injury. Most parents can do the math and would
prefer that their child be served foods they will willingly
eat in the lunchroom rather than encourage them to get behind
the wheel or in the passenger seat of some teenagers car
to go in search of more palatable fare.
Nutrition
Policy Usurps the Power of Local School Districts and Parents
- Susan Combs,
Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, issued
the new guidelines on March 1, 2004, touting them as an "attempt
to promote a healthier environment in schools" designed
to counter childhood obesity. But what the 15-page culinary
blacklist really amounts to is yet another attempt to usurp
the power of local governments, school districts, teachers and
parents charged with the primary education and care of our children.
- As legislators
work to restructure the property-tax system so that some of
that money would stay in local communities and some would flow
to schools throughout the state, legislative efforts should
include a plan that will afford the same local control to school
districts when it comes to operating their food service programs.
State-mandated nutrition policies take control away from local
government, school districts, teachers and parents, who should
be the first line of both offense and defense in childrens
lives.
- We agree
with the Young Conservatives of Texas, once a supporter of Ms.
Combs, when they recently questioned her legal authority to
ban certain foods, stating that "Texans elected Susan Combs
as Commissioner of Agriculture, not the states food policewoman.
While Combs has been delegated oversight authority over
federal school meal programs, she has exceeded her scope of
this authority [because the] intent of the Texas Legislature
was not to impose such a ban."
Nutrition
Policy is Arbitrary and Sends the Wrong Message to Children
- The nutrition
policy is arbitrary. There is no evidence that banning certain
foods on campus, including sodas, popsicles and candies, will
do anything to reduce the number of overweight youths. Kids
will still be able to buy sodas off-campus, bring them to school
in their lunchboxes, or drink them at home.
- Such a
draconian solution does nothing to teach children about enjoying
certain foods in moderation; it only adds to the already lengthy
list of what the schools consider contraband, often making the
forbidden objects only more desirable. Why so many educated
adults cannot understand the psychology of youth rebellion is
troubling.
- We do not
live in a world of black and white. If we dont arm children
with the skills to make their own choices in the "gray
zone," we are setting them up to fail. Indeed, we will
be left with nothing more than a new generation of Americans
who will graduate from high school having been taught how to
point the finger at others and avoid taking personal responsibility.
April 29, 2004