As many of you know, the new USDA ?competitive food? rules are due to be released before the end of this year (though likely after the presidential election.) ?These rules will regulate all food offered on school campuses apart from the federal school meal, i.e., food from vending machines, school stores, fundraisers, and the school?s own ?a la carte? or snack bar line in the cafeteria.
As demonstrated by the notorious ?pizza=vegetable? debacle when the new federal school meal patterns were released ?last fall, there are likely to be hordes of powerful food industry lobbyists lying in wait, ready to water down these new competitive food rules as much as possible. ?But junk food in schools is a critical issue, and that?s why?I?m glad?Mission Readiness is already gearing up for the fight.
Mission Readiness is a bipartisan group of over?two hundred retired generals, admirals, and other senior military leaders, founded in 2008 out of a?growing concern that the majority of America?s youth are unfit to serve in the armed forces. ?In 2010 it issued a seminal report on?childhood obesity called ?Too Fat to Fight,? which stated that
an alarming?75 percent of all young Americans 17 to 24 years of age are unable to join the military because they failed?to graduate from high school, have criminal records, or are physically unfit.
Being overweight or obese turns out to be the leading medical reason why applicants fail to qualify for?military service. Today, otherwise excellent recruit prospects, some of them with generations of sterling?military service in their family history, are being turned away because they are just too overweight.
(In 2011 I shared my two-part interview with a Mission Readiness member, retired Air Force General Norman Seip. ?You can read that?here and here.)
Later today, Mission Readiness will be holding a press conference in Washington, D.C. regarding its new report,??Still Too Fat to Fight,? which focuses on the widespread sale of junk food in schools. ?From the report:
on any given day, almost 40 percent of children in elementary through high schools ? 16 million children ? consumed one or more competitive foods that were high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food, or sugar-sweetened beverages. . . . students who reported in the USDA survey that they were consuming high-calorie, low-nutrient food obtained at school averaged over 130 calories a day from these desserts, candy, chips, or other junk food, even exluding sugary drinks or sodas. . . .
Noting that an extra 130 calories a day could lead to an excess 10 pounds of body weight over ten years, the report calculates that
The 130 calories a day for all students consuming junk food equals almost 400 billion ?empty? calories a year from foods low in nutrients and high in solid fats and added sugar. Our calculations show that those calories would equal nearly 2 billion candy bars, which would weigh almost 90 thousand tons ? more than the weight of the aircraft carrier Midway.
The report concludes with the common sense argument that
It is unlikely that schools can successfully educate children about the need to improve their eating habits if the schools contradict that message by continuing to sell junk food.
You can read the entire report here, and I?ll certainly keep you posted on any developments regarding the new competitive food rules ? likely to be the biggest kid-and-food news story in the months ahead.
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