Leahy, Lugar Offer Bill To Limit Sales In Schools
Of Empty-Calorie Sodas And Snacks;
Leahy Also Introduces Bill Promoting
More Healthy Choices For Students

WASHINGTON (Tues., May 6) – Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) Tuesday will introduce legislation to allow the Secretary of Agriculture to more effectively restrict the sale of soft drinks and other foods of minimal nutritional value in schools that participate in the federal school lunch program. 

Leahy introduced a similar measure in 2001, about the same time that a report to Congress compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture encouraged Congress to make statutory changes to promote the consumption of more nutritious foods on school grounds.  The report concluded that only 2 percent of the nation’s schoolchildren were meeting the Food Guide Pyramid serving recommendations for all five major food groups.  The American Soft Drink Association reports that 60 percent of the nation’s middle and high schools sell soft drinks, often in vending machines.  

Current federal school lunch rules prohibit the sale of foods of minimal nutritional value, including soft drinks, in school cafeterias during the lunch hour.  The Leahy-Lugar bill would allow the Agriculture Secretary to more broadly regulate sales of these empty-calorie foods throughout school grounds until the end of the school lunch period. 

“When students fill up on sodas and junk food, it displaces the balanced nutrition available in the cafeteria,” said Leahy, the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Subcommittee on Research and Nutrition, of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.  “That makes dollars and cents for vendors, but it does not make sense for students or for the taxpayers who are paying the bill.  Childhood obesity is a growing concern to families everywhere, and school lunches are a key source of good nutrition for millions of children.  This bill offers a sensible way to resist influences that are undermining that source of good nutrition.”

Leahy and Lugar intend to offer the sodas in schools bill during the Agriculture Committee’s work this year on legislation reauthorizing child nutrition programs.  Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M), Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) are cosponsors of the Leahy-Lugar bill.

Leahy this week also introduced a separate package of child nutrition programs -- which he will also offer on the child nutrition reauthorization bill -- aimed at educating children about the benefits of eating healthy and ensuring that schools have access to more healthy foods.  Leahy’s Child Nutrition Initiatives Act of 2003 includes provisions to reinstate funding for the Nutritional Education and Training (NET) Program, to secure funding for the successful WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program, to update the all-state minimum that guarantees all states a minimum amount of federal child nutrition funding, and to create a new farm-to-cafeteria program to supply locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables to school cafeterias. 

# # # # #