Who's to blame for junk food still being in school?

Stephanie Rose walked into the lunchroom of the Idaho Falls High School with a homemade chart and tallied what she found: Canisters of potato chips. Heaps of candy. Cellophane-wrapped cakes. High-caffeine sports drinks.

Twelve percent of the foods offered by the district a la carte program were granola or cereal bars, fruits, vegetables, or low-fat chips or pretzels. The other 88 percent included nachos, corn dogs, chips and cookies.

"For 25 cents you can buy 310 calories," said Rose, a nurse and diabetes educator who attended Idaho Falls High in the 1980s, when she had to take a helping of beans on her plate whether she wanted them or not.

These days, the school promotes "Corn dogs: two for a dollar," she says. "Good Lord, what are you trying to do here?"

Rose studied the food offerings for a school wellness committee, and she's campaigning to get rid of junk food. But she's facing opposition from some parents and school officials who say that if they ban school snacks, the kids will just buy them somewhere else. It will also cut off money that pays for equipment and programs.

As in the rest of the country, Idaho residents are getting fatter. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2003 that nearly 60 percent of adults in Idaho were considered overweight or obese. Rose said one-third of the patients she sees who are at risk for diabetes are under the age of 18.

The Idaho Falls district wellness committee is the result of a federal law that directs all school districts to have a policy in place by the end of June. But the law has no teeth in it; nothing happens if districts don't come up with a plan.

For now, the Idaho Falls committee is proposing minor changes — banning sales of candy in the lunchroom and limiting the size of sodas sold in vending machines.

"It's going to sort out the school districts who care about their kids from the ones who don't," she said.

Courtesy of AP

Bonnie - this is what we have run into when we have consulted for several school districts. Many of the superintendents want to make major changes, but back down when confronted by parents. It is not so much the kids as it is the parents. If the kids eat healthier at school, they will start asking questions about why they don't eat healthier at home. Many parents do not want to make the effort to change.