Coalition wants schools to stop pushing junk food on children

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert			July 12, 2000

To reduce childhood obesity, Commercial Alert, child advocates, public
health professionals, food safety groups and media scholars today asked
key Members of Congress to get the public schools to stop promoting junk
food to schoolchildren.

The letter to Senate and House Agriculture Committee Chairmen Richard
Lugar (R-IN) and Larry Combest, (R-TX) and Ranking Members Tom Harkin
(D-IA) and Charles Stenholm (D-TX) says that in thousands of schools
"corporations and school administrators have joined together to market
high-calorie, caffeinated, high-sugar candy and soda pop to
impressionable children," which contradicts the purposes of the National
School Lunch Program.  The letter follows.

Dear Chairmen Lugar and Combest, and Ranking Members Harkin and
Stenholm:

	When he signed the National School Lunch Act into law in 1946, Harry
Truman said that "no nation is any healthier than its children."  Later
that year, Truman expanded on this theme. "The well nourished school
child is a better student," Truman said.  "He is healthier and more
alert.  He is developing good food habits which will benefit him for the
rest of his life.  In short, he is a better asset for his country in
every way."
	
	Congress enacted the National School Lunch Act to achieve the goal that
President Truman articulated so well.  The Act established the National
School Lunch Program "to safeguard the health and well-being of the
Nation's children."  

	After extensive hearings, and reviews of statistical surveys of
students, Congress concluded that children learn better on a healthy
diet.  In its report on the bill, the House Committee on Agriculture
wrote: "The educational features of a properly chosen diet served at
school should not be underemphasized. Not only is the child taught what
a good diet consists of, but his parents and family likewise are
indirectly instructed." In its own report, the Senate Committee on
Agriculture noted that "proper nutrition is essential for the health and
well-being of a child and for his growth and development as a citizen."

	For decades, the School Lunch Program has served this nation well.  It
has provided tens of billions of healthful meals to the nation's
schoolchildren.  In recent years, however, the goals of the School Lunch
Program have come under increasing attack, and the culprits are the
recipients of these federal dollars -- that is, the public schools.  

	In Fiscal Year 1999, schools happily accepted $7.4 billion in taxpayer
funds to carry out the federal school food programs. Yet thousands of
those schools have openly defied the intent of the Senate and House
Agriculture Committees, and Congress as a whole, in providing those
dollars, by encouraging school children to eat junk food.  In these
schools, corporations and school administrators have joined together to
market high-calorie, caffeinated, high-sugar candy and soda pop to
impressionable children.

	  Propaganda touting the consumption of junk food is now commonplace in
the nation's schools. About 12,000 schools show Primedia's Channel One,
an in-school marketing program disguised as a news show, which features
a parade of ads for junk food and soda pop to a contractually obligated
captive audience of about eight million school children. In recent
months, Channel One has used the public classrooms to promote Snickers,
Twix, M&M's, Pepsi, Hostess Cakes, Milky Way, Doritos, Mountain Dew,
Nestle's Crunch, Skittles and others.

	This propaganda campaign for bad nutrition is intensifying. Soda pop is
an example.  Advertising Age reported last year that "In the last 18
months alone, the number of exclusive soda contracts in school districts
has increased nationwide 300%, to 150." According to Channel One's Teen
Fact Book 2000, schools sell soda pop as their "top beverage product,"
and the top food products sold are potato chips, tortilla chips and
cookies. 

	It is probably no accident that childhood obesity has become a major
public health problem in the United States.  An article in the October
27, 1999 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association notes
"alarming increases in obesity among children and adolescents," and an
accompanying editorial remarks on the role of the "marketing of snack
foods" in the obesity epidemic.  In 1998, Surgeon General David Satcher
observed that many young people in America today are "starting out obese
and dooming themselves to the difficult task of overcoming a tough
illness." 

	These young people will subject themselves and the whole society to
enormous costs.  One recent study estimates that the total annual cost
of obesity in the United States is nearly $100 billion, for diseases
such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, as well as extra
visits to doctors, bed-rest and lost work days.

	This is exactly the kind of result that Congress intended the School
Lunch Program to avoid.  It sought to promote healthful eating habits so
that young Americans could grow up to be contributors to society, not
medical burdens upon it.  Yet that is what the public schools -- schools
that accept millions of dollars in Lunch Program funds -- are
promoting.  		

	To its credit, Congress wisely reserved for itself full authority over
the educational aspects of the Lunch Program.  It specifically prevented
the Secretary of Agriculture from getting involved in this area.  In
other words, the ball is in your court, and if you do not act now, the
problem will likely grow worse.  Of course, local school administrators
can put commercial propaganda in their schools if they wish.  That's for
them to decide.  

	But it's for Congress to decide whether it will continue to lavish
hundreds of millions of dollars in school lunch funds upon schools that
are violating the very purpose for that program -- for money.   School
administrators shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways.  They
shouldn't be able to take federal money for school lunches, and then
take money or products from corporations to subvert the purposes of the
lunch program. 

	Actions have consequences, and that applies as much to school
administrators as to anyone else.  If these people are not willing to
abide by the purposes of the School Lunch Program -- that is, the
"improvement of the health and well-being of the Nation's youth"-- then
perhaps they should pay for their own lunch program.  Federal taxpayers
deserve better, and so do the nation's youth.

Sincerely,
Joan Almon, U.S. Coordinator, Alliance for Childhood
Susan Berkson, Metro Coordinator, Minnesota Children's Health
Environmental Coalition
Brian Burt, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of
Public Health
Dr. Brita Butler-Wall, School of Education, Seattle University
Jackie Hunt Christensen, Director, Food Safety Project, Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy
Ronnie Cummins, National Campaign Director, Organic Consumers
Association
Roy F. Fox, Associate Prof. of English Ed. & Lit., University of
MO-Columbia; author, Harvesting Minds
Rose E. Frisch, Associate Professor of Population Sciences Emerita,
Harvard School of Public Health
Todd Gitlin, Professor of Culture, Journalism and Sociology, New York
University; author, The Twilight of Common Dreams
Joan Gussow, M. S. Rose Professor Emeritus, Nutrition and Education,
Teachers College, Columbia Univ.
Jane M. Healy, author, Failure to Connect
Carol Holst, Program Director, Seeds of Simplicity
Amid I. Ismail, Professor of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and
Endodontics, University of Michigan
Michael F. Jacobson, Executive Director, Center for Science in the
Public Interest
Carden Johnston, Chair, Task Force On Commercialism in Schools, Alabama
Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics
Norman M. Kaplan, Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine, Univ. of
Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Timothy J. Kasser, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Knox College
David L. Katz, Director, Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center
Jean Kilbourne, author, Deadly Persuasion
Rebecca T. Kirkland, Professor of Pediatrics, Chief of Academic
Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine
Ronald M. Krauss, Head, Dept. of Molecular Medicine, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory
Jane Levine, Co-founder, Kids Can Make A Difference
Bob McCannon, Executive Director, New Mexico Media Literacy Project
Robert McChesney, Research Associate Professor, U. of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign; author, Rich Media, Poor Democracy
Bernard McGrane, Associate Prof. of Sociology, Chapman Univ.; author,
The Un-TV and the 10 Mph Car
Jim Metrock, President, Obligation, Inc.
Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University
Alex Molnar, Director, Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in
Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Marion Nestle, Chair, Department of Nutrition & Food Studies, New York
University
Neil Postman, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University; author,
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Eric Rimm, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard
School of Public Health
Thomas N. Robinson, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine,
Stanford Univ. School of Medicine
Douglas Rushkoff, author, Coercion and Media Virus
Gary Ruskin, Director, Commercial Alert
Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum
Juliet Schor, Senior Lecturer on Women's Studies, Harvard University;
author, The Overspent American
Mary Story, Professor of Public Health Nutrition, Division of
Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota
Betsy Taylor, Executive Director, Center for a New American Dream
David Wall, President, Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools
Donald E. Wildmon, President, American Family Association

<-----------letter ends here-------->
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Commercial Alert's web page on the marketing of junk food to
schoolchildren is at
<http://www.essential.org/alert/junkfood/index.html>

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Contact the members of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees that
represent your state.  Please tell them to get the public schools to
carry out the healthful intent of the National School Lunch Program and
stop promoting junk food to schoolchildren.

The Congressional switchboard phone is (202) 224-3121. To find the fax
numbers and e-mail addresses of Members of Congress, see
<http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html>.

Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee 

Republicans
Lugar, Richard (IN), Chairman
Helms, Jesse (NC)
Cochran, Thad (MS)
McConnell, Mitch (KY)
Coverdell, Paul (GA)
Roberts, Pat (KS)
Fitzgerald, Peter (IL)
Grassley, Charles (IA)
Craig, Larry (ID)
Santorum, Rick (PA)

Democrats
Harkin, Tom (IA) Ranking Member
Leahy, Patrick (VT)
Conrad, Kent (ND)
Daschle, Thomas (SD)
Baucus, Max (MT)
Kerrey, Bob (NE)
Johnson, Tim (SD)
Lincoln, Blanche (AR)


House Agriculture Committee

Republicans
Combest, Larry (TX - 19) Chairman
Barrett, Bill (NE - 3) Vice Chairman
Boehner, John (OH - 8)
Ewing, Thomas (IL - 15)
Goodlatte, Bob (VA - 6)
Pombo, Richard (CA - 11)
Canady, Charles (FL - 12)
Smith, Nick (MI - 7)
Everett, Terry (AL - 2)
Lucas, Frank (OK - 6)
Chenoweth, Helen (ID - 1)
Hostettler, John (IN - 8)
Chambliss, Saxby (GA - 8)
LaHood, Ray (IL - 18)
Moran, Jerry (KS - 1)
Schaffer, Bob (CO - 4)
Thune, John (SD - At Large)
Jenkins, William (TN - 1)
Cooksey, John (LA - 5)
Calvert, Ken (CA - 43)
Gutknecht, Gil (MN - 1)
Riley, Bob (AL - 3)
Walden, Greg (OR - 2)
Simpson, Mike (ID - 2)
Ose, Douglas (CA - 3)
Hayes, Robin (NC - 8)
Fletcher, Ernie (KY - 6)

Democrats
Stenholm, Charles (TX - 17) Ranking Member
Baca, Joe (CA - 42)
Condit, Gary (CA - 18)
Peterson, Collin (MN - 7)
Dooley, Calvin (CA - 20)
Clayton, Eva (NC - 1)
Minge, David (MN - 2)
Hilliard, Earl (AL - 7)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND - At Large)
Holden, Tim (PA - 6)
Bishop, Sanford (GA - 2)
Thompson, Bennie (MS - 2)
Baldacci, John (ME - 2)
Berry, Marion (AR - 1)
McIntyre, Mike (NC - 7)
Stabenow, Deborah (MI - 8)
Etheridge, Bobby (NC - 2)
John, Christopher (LA - 7)
Boswell, Leonard (IA - 3)
Phelps, David (IL - 19)
Lucas, Ken (KY - 4)
Thompson, Mike (CA - 1)
Hill, Baron (IN - 9)
Baca, Joe (CA - 42)

Commercial Alert opposes the excesses of commercialism, marketing and
advertising.  Commercial Alert's web address is
<http://www.essential.org/alert/>. 

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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A | Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax (202) 833-2406
http://www.essential.org/alert/ | mailto:gary@essential.org
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