Carlsbad Unified junks unhealthy food items
By: PHILIP K. IRELAND - Staff Writer
CARLSBAD ---- Super-size chips? Nope. Monster cookies? No more. Sodas? Not a chance.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has brought the battle of the bulge to school campuses across the state ---- including Carlsbad Unified School District ---- with recent and pending legislation aimed at ending the sale of calorie-rich, nutrition-challenged snacks that compete with more healthy cafeteria offerings.
Two senate bills are already law. Senate Bill 965, which went into effect on New Year's Day, bans the sale of sodas from elementary and middle school campuses. High schools must phase out soda sales by 2009. Senate Bill 14 limits the fat and sugar content of individual servings sold in schools and will go into effect in July of 2007. The legislation also limits serving sizes to 175 calories in elementary schools and 250 calories in middle and high schools.
And now under consideration is Assembly Bill 469, which would include sugar and salt content in decisions about which foods are offered for sale on school campuses.
However, the laws come with some exceptions. In elementary schools, the banned foods and drinks can be sold by students off school grounds after school. And in middle and high schools, the laws allow the sale of banned items for fundraising and during school events after school. The laws limit only what school officials, parents and students may sell, and when. They do not prohibit anyone from bringing sodas and junk food onto school campuses.
The legislation comes in response to what many say is an obesity epidemic.
Obesity in children between the ages of 6 and 11 has more than tripled since 1971, according to the American Obesity Association, an organization seeking to define obesity as a disease while working toward changing public policy and the public's perception of obesity.
Michelle Johnson, the district's director of food services, said cafeteria workers and vending machines across the district stopped selling sodas last year. Today, school workers sell only fruit drinks with at least 50 percent fruit juice, electrolyte drinks such as Gatorade, water and reduced-fat milk.
And in preparation for the July 2007 start date for reducing serving sizes, the district is already complying with the law. The single servings of potato chips are smaller than the three-serving bags offered last year. Last year's 3-ounce cookies have shrunk to 2 ounces. By reducing the serving size, Johnson said, students can no longer make a meal of a super-size bag of potato chips and a soft drink. And by offering the smaller portions at the same price as last year's larger servings, students are more likely to buy the healthier, more filling alternatives.
Those offerings included burritos, chicken sandwiches, burgers and rice bowls at Carlsbad High last Tuesday, when Kevin Han, a 14-year-old freshman, was sitting at a table wolfing down a $2.25 bowl of teriyaki chicken and rice. A 16-ounce bottle of Gatorade sat before him.
"I was really hungry today and wanted to get a lot of food," said Kevin, a runner on the school's cross country team, explaining his choice over the chatter of classmates in the outdoor cafeteria.
Han said he has no problem with the soft drink ban.
"I think it's pretty good," he said. "They're not that healthy."
But junior Jake Buccini, 17, misses the pick-me-up of caffeine and sugar contained in sodas that has been a part of his high school experience for the past two years.
"I don't like that," he said of the ban. "Sodas are something you need to carry you through the afternoon to get through class.
Further, Jake said, the ban takes the decision making away from students.
"If we're OK to come to school and make good choices, then we're old enough to decide what to drink," he said.
At Hope Elementary School on Wednesday, children said they liked the new salad bar ---- offered a few days a week to accompany some entrees.
"I love salads," said 5th-grader Briana Hunt as she munched a mix of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli and cucumber topped with ranch dressing. "I like pretty much anything I can put on top of lettuce."
Across the table, a small mountain of broccoli sat before Shea Malone, who said she likes horses, dance and a certain boy that she and her friends screamed their refusal to name.
"Broccoli's my favorite food," she said, happy that the school offered the salad bar.
Shea's friends, their hands clamped over their mouths, refused to divulge the name of the favorite boy.
Lunch can't be all about food.
Childhood Obesity
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