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The school year has begun and millions of children have returned to a “vending machine diet.” This, according to a worrying post in the LA Times health blog, Booster Shots (one of our favorites). The post refers to a study recently published  in the Journal of School Health.

The stats are frightening:

Vending machines are found in 16% of U.S. elementary schools, 52% of middle schools and 88% of high schools. About 22% of students in grades 1 through 12 buy food in vending machines each day – and those purchases added an average of 253 calories to their diets. read more…

And don’t placate yourself by imagining junior is buying healthy snacks. The most popular purchases are sugary soft drinks, candy bars, and savory snacks. Yes, the kids also purchase fruit juices and milk, but in some cases they contain even more sugar than the soda.

The bottom line (unbelievable!):

All that snacking adds up to about 14 extra pounds per child per school year.

These stats have not gone unnoticed by school officials and educators. But with dwindling government funding for our children’s free education, schools are not in a rush to remove vending machines, a source of added revenue, from the campus.

What about selling healthier alternatives in vending machines? Some schools are trying to do that, but there are a lot of misconceptions around this. When Snapple is touted as a healthy alternative to soda, we’ve got problems.

Think of the dilemma last year in New York’s Department of Education. A deal with Snapple would bring in $35 million to the school district, but a deal with a provider of healthier options was valued at $7 million dollars less. Thankfully, the school chose less money, more healthy snacks. But don’t get your hopes up too high – Baked chips and reduced fat Doritos are still popular mainstays.

What can we do as parents?

1. Demand plenty of clean, functioning water fountains in school hallways and yards. For some reason, it seems there were a lot more when we were kids, not just at schools, also in shopping malls. Kids will drink the water, and be less apt to go for soda.
2. Tell your school you don’t want vending machines. Work with schools to find alternative ways to create income.
3. Alternatively – set clear guidelines as to what foods and beverages are allowed in vending machines.
4. Get your school involved in healthy food initiatives such as Chef Ann Cooper’s Salad Bar Project, a joint program with Whole Foods Market.
5. Stock your child with snacks from home (bought or homemade), to at least control what she is snacking on.

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This is a guest blog post by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, MD CCFP Dip ABBM, Medical Director, Bariatric Medical Institute, Ottawa Canada

It’s a phenomenon that baffles me.

Well versed, intelligent, thoughtful and well intentioned health and nutrition professionals who have latched onto a notion that must warm of the heart of Big Food executives the world over – that less bad is in fact good.

I see it constantly:

Front-of-package programs that throw their endorsements on “foods” like oven-baked French-fried and “enriched” Minute Rice (Heart and Stroke’s Health Check, I’m looking at you) where the endorsements don’t tell consumers the choices are less bad, they tell them they’re good; school food advocates promoting chocolate milk and juice as good because they have a smattering of nutrients and as such are less bad than pop; vending machines that have stoplight guidance systems suggesting that baked chips are in fact good choices when at best they’re just less bad than their fully fried friends.

Less bad is not good!

- A 4% tax hike, while less bad than a 10% tax hike is still a tax hike.

- A speeding ticket for going 15 over while less bad than a ticket for going 40 over is still a speeding ticket.

- A conviction for manslaughter, while less bad than a conviction for first degree murder, still means you’re going to jail.

If we want to further nutrition reform in society we need to start calling things out for what they are.

There are bad foods. In fact there are probably more bad foods now than ever before and just because something’s less bad it doesn’t make it good. By not calling out bad foods for what they are we’re putting society at a disadvantage and allowing food manufacturers to play on an uneven playing field.

Stopping playing by rules that don’t make nutritional sense.

You should eat the smallest amount of bad foods that you need to be happy, and you shouldn’t kid yourself, or worse yet anybody else, into thinking they’re good.

Nutritional advocates who claim less bad is good belong in Bizzaro-world.

Bad is bad. Period. And that’s ok.

Now everyone take a deep breath.

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, MD, is the founder and Medical Director of the Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa, a multi-disciplinary behavioural weight management program. Formally trained in family medicine, since 2004 his practice has been exclusively dedicated to the treatment of overweight and obesity.

Dr. Freedhoff has been referred to as a “nutritional watchdog” by the Canadian Medical Association Journal and his advocacy efforts for improved public policies regarding nutrition and obesity have found him testifying in front of the Canadian House of Commons, giving press conferences with the Ontario Medical Association, commenting regularly in the national media, and delivering lectures across the country.

Dr. Freedhoff explores issues pertinent to nutrition, obesity, public policy and advocacy in his daily blog Weighty Matters which is ranked among the world’s top health blogs and was voted the top Canadian health blog of 2008 by the Canadian Blog Awards.

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A December article from Health Education & Behavior, wanted to test the thesis that if we take junk food out of schools, kids will compensate by pigging out at home or elsewhere.

Over a 2 year period, researchers studied six middle schools in the Northeast. The research was led by Marlene Schwartz, Ph.D., deputy director at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. Three of the schools replaced potato chips, doughnuts, soft drinks and cookies with water, 100% fruit juice, baked chips, granola bars, and fruit. Three other schools maintained their existing food regimen.

Guess what happened?

What you need to know:

According to Schwartz – “we found that when you take soda and high-fat snacks out of schools, students did not compensate at home. Instead, they ate better at school and no worse at home.”

So why aren’t all schools rushing to rid themselves of junk food?

The answer, as usual, is money.

Children are a huge market for food manufacturers. Selling snacks and beverages at schools is a huge business opportunity and it creates lifelong loyalty. Just ask a Coke exec who once said “get them while they’re young”.

Schools benefit from junk food sales too, by getting a commission on sales from vending machines. The dimes and quarters quickly add up to 6 figure sums that help many a school under severe financial burden.

Thankfully more and more schools are realizing that the long term benefits of healthy eating outweigh the short term financial gain.

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Over the weekend Congress (barely) passed the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or H.R. 3962. And while much media attention went to the abortion clauses that were put in / taken out, there were also several food and nutrition related provisions added to the new legislation.

Section 2572 [NUTRITION LABELING OF STANDARD MENU ITEMS AT CHAIN RESTAURANTS AND OF ARTICLES OF FOOD SOLD FROM VENDING MACHINES] will require 2 things:

1. Any operator of 20 or more vending machines will now be required to label the calorie count for each of the items on sale:

the vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories contained in the article

This is great, because it will help people snack a bit more mindfully. Especially important is the labeling of soft drinks and juices. Consumers pick up a vitamin water and are sometimes surprised when they’re told it contains 8 teaspoons of sugar and 130 calories!

2. Restaurant chains with national presence of 20 or more locales will now have to post calorie information as well. The information has to appear on menus as well as on the menu board and drive in menu board where applicable.

There have been calorie labeling efforts in several cities and states across the country in the past 2 years, but now they’ll all come under a single roof.

While calories are a great start, they certainly don’t tell the whole story of a product, so the bill further states that upon request, customers shall also be informed about level of nutrients such as  fat, sodium, and cholesterol.

That’s nice in theory, but you can just imagine a scene where Fred is standing in line at a busy BK, trying to decide whether to go for a cheeseburger or whopper, and asking the Jack the cashier for the saturated fat content of each. While Jack is scratching his head and calling the shift manager who vaguely remembers some brochure buried in the stock room, the line behind Fred gets longer and more restless….

The National Restaurant Association supports the new menu requirement, and with good reason. Better have one single rule, than have each state or municipality come up with its own requirements, as California did.

We would have liked to see more sweeping legislation connected to food and nutrition in this bill. After all, much of our health problems are directly related to poor eating habits. But this will have to wait for another time.

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The Coca Cola company has announced a Global ‘Front-of-Pack’ Commitment this week in which it will prominently display the calories per serving of its products. In a press release the company boasts it is the first company in the beverage industry to make this kind of international commitment. The stated goal is

to increase consumers’ awareness about the calorie content of its beverages.

The rollout of the program has begun in Australia and Europe, and the US is soon to follow. The entire lineup of products should be covered by then end of 2011.

We are not at all impressed. On the contrary. Here is why. Read more…

Note: The following is a guest post by Andy Bellatti, MS. He is the creator of the Small Bites blog, where this post originally appeared.  Andy is on the Registered Dietitian track at New York University’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health.

Okay, quick.
You’re standing in front of a vending machine a few hours after having finished lunch, in search of a savory snack.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s say you are at an all-day workshop in some random building, you didn’t bring a snack with you, and there’s another three hours until you get home and can fix yourself dinner.

The vending machine offers you the following options: plain potato chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, and crackers.

Which would you choose to get the most nutritional bang for your buck?  If you said potato chips — you are RIGHT.

Yes, you read correctly.  Let me explain.

A one-ounce bag of Lay’s potato chips contains:

• 150 calories
• 10 grams fat (1 gram saturated)
• 180 milligrams sodium

A one-ounce bag of tortilla chips provides:

• 140 calories
• 7 grams fat (1 gram saturated)
• 125 milligrams sodium

Let’s take a look at what a one-ounce bag of pretzels adds up to:

• 100 calories
• 0 grams fat
• 580 milligrams sodium

Finally, here is what you get from a one-ounce bag of crackers (i.e. Wheat Thins)

• 150 calories
• 6 grams fat (1 gram saturated)
• 280 milligrams sodium

Let’s discuss.

Although many people are automatically sold by their absence of fat, I have issues with pretzels.  I consider them to be a nutritionally lame snack.

Not only are most of them entirely comprised of refined white flour, they also lack the three nutrients that provide a feeling of satiety, or fullness: fat, protein, and fiber.

The problem with foods that offer negligible amounts of those three nutrients is that it takes quite a bit of their calories to feel satisfied.  Snacking on 150 calorie of almonds, for example (which contain fat, protein, and fiber), leaves you fuller for longer than that same amount of calories from pretzels.

Although crackers like Wheat Thins have some fat, they are mostly made with white flour.  Pass.

That brings us to tortilla chips and potato chips.

Calorically, they are almost equal.  Although both have the same amount of saturated fat, tortilla chips have a few less grams of total fat and a slightly lower sodium content.

However, it is what you don’t see on nutrition labels that gives potato chips the edge — potassium!

A one-ounce serving of potato chips provides, on average, 460 milligrams of potassium — as much as a medium banana.  That same amount of tortilla chips?  Sixty milligrams.

Remember, adequate potassium intake is a crucial tool against hypertension (cutting back on sodium is only part of the equation).  Coincidentally, the average US diet is too high in sodium and too low in potassium.

The additional 65 milligrams of sodium in potato chips (compared to corn chips) is a moot point when you consider they come bundled with that much potassium.

It also doesn’t hurt that the ingredient list for potato chips (such as Lay’s) is nice and basic: potatoes, oil, and salt.  No extra junk.

Let me be perfectly clear — this is not a recommendation to get your potassium from potato chips.  Nor am I christening potato chips as a healthy snack when you’re on the run.

However, nutrition is about making the most out of whatever choices you have available.  You aren’t always going to have fresh fruits, nuts, organic vegetables and whole grains at your disposal, so it’s always good to be prepared for moments like these.

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flickr photo: Ben + Sam

Every day, 30 million school children get a free or subsidized meal as part of the National School Lunch Program. The Child Nutrition Act, enacted in 1966, saw school lunches as a place where all kids could get at least one meal a day that met their nutritional needs.

The law is revisited every 5 years to review nutritional standards, and powerful industry forces try to influence which foods make it to the dining halls. The next 5 year review is happening now, and there’s a alot of buzz in the press about the nutrition situation in schools.

Did you know, for example, that in Chicago, every single day, the most popular lunch dish is sodium and fat laden nachos. How is this a nutritious lunch, you ask?

Unfortunately, schools are strapped for cash. With a budget for lunch at about $2 per child, it’s much easier to source greaseburgers and fries than fresh fish, salad and whole wheat bread.

Adding to the problem is kids’ taste preference. Many children have been conditioned from age zero to prefer  junk food. Schools get reimbursed based on the number of children who participate in the lunch program, so if it’s healthy food that nobody wants to eat, no money for the school.

Aside from lunchtime, schools are brimming with vending machines selling kids more crap such as candy bars, soda pop, and sodium rich snacks. Many parents would like to see these vending machines disappear, but the financial reward to the school is very high. For every dollar revenue, the school gets a few pennies back from Snapple, Mars, and others. Tell a school system superintendent to give up on this easy cash flow and you’ll hear how much the extra cash helps pay for very important educational programs.

Selling to kids at school is very important strategically to food marketers. They know that getting kids hooked on their products will promise lifelong loyalty. John Alm, a former CEO of Coca-Cola once said – “The school system is where you build brand loyalty.”

By the way, the situation in Canada is not much better, as Dr. Yoni Freedhoff writes in his blog Weighty Matters: Children learned in science class about eating healthfully, but were reprimanded by the school for complaining publicly about the junk food being served in the school cafeteria.

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Japan gets hot in the summer. A hot Tokyo train ride during rush hour is no treat. So cold beverages are available for sale in vending machines all over town.

Now, catering to growing interest in healthy drinks, both Coca Cola and Pespico are unveiling local versions of “healthy soft drinks”. (Don’t you just love this oxymoron?)

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that while Coke is going for the classic green tea play, Pepsi  will introduce a more exotic basil leaf “Pepsi Shiso” later this month.

What you need to know:

Folks – it’s liquid candy, and we don’t care if they added a vitamin or an antioxidant to make you believe otherwise.

What to do at the supermarket:

Save $500 a year by switching to tap water! If you must get your antioxidants from a beverage, look for unsweetened iced teas.

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