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February 7th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda MONDAY, Feb. 6 (HealthDay News) — Despite efforts to serve
healthier meals to school children, roughly half of U.S. elementary school
kids can buy junk food at school, a new study finds.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago said cookies,
cakes and chips are still sold through school vending machines, cafeterias
and snack bars even if they are not served at lunch.
“Kids can get junk food at school,” said Lindsey Turner, a health
psychologist and research scientist at the university’s Institute for
Health Research and Policy. “Despite increasing attention to food in
schools and childhood obesity, over time there was no change in the
availability of food in competitive venues in schools,” she said.
“Competitive” foods and beverages are those sold separately from school
lunches.
In 2007, the Institute of Medicine said school meal programs should be
the primary source of food at school and recommended limiting access to
competitive foods and drinks. If competitive foods were available, they
should include fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy
products, the Institute said.
“Given these recommendations for what are considered healthy practices
in schools, a lot of schools are not following them,” Turner said. “Where
these products are available, kids are consuming more calories and that is
a risk factor for obesity,” she added.
Nearly 20 percent of elementary school students included in a 2007-2008
national survey were obese, the study authors said. Because children spend
much of their day at school, the experts said efforts to promote healthy
eating must include schools.
Increasing awareness of the problem helps, but Turner pointed out that
without regulation a lot of schools won’t change their policies. “We have
a huge window of opportunity now with the United States Department of
Agriculture now studying regulations for these foods in schools,” she
added. Under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the USDA can set
standards for all foods sold in schools.
The report was published in the February issue of the Archives of
Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine.
For the study, Turner and her colleague, Frank Chaloupka, a professor
of economics, collected data on nearly 3,000 public and more than 1,200
private schools. They looked at data from 2006-2007 through 2009-2010.
The researchers found that low-fat foods and sweets were more available
in larger public schools than in smaller schools.
Children in suburban schools had more opportunities to buy salty,
sugary or low-fat foods than children in city schools. In suburban
schools, about 53 percent of the children could buy food in one or more
places, compared with 44 percent of children in city schools, 41 percent
in small-town schools and more than 54 percent in rural schools.
Snacks were more available in private schools than in public schools,
especially salty snacks such as chips, the researchers found.
Children living in the South, which has the nation’s highest rate of
childhood obesity, generally had more places to buy salty and sweet snacks
than kids elsewhere. But in public schools in the South, children also had
more access to healthier snacks than kids in the Midwest and the West, the
researchers found.
That distinction didn’t surprise Samantha Heller, a dietitian and
clinical nutrition coordinator at the Center for Cancer Care at Griffin
Hospital in Derby, Conn.
“Put an elementary school kid in front of a vending machine. He can
choose either a candy bar or apple, French fries or a salad. Which do you
think he’ll go for?” she asked.
“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know the answer. Children
will choose the food that they believe tastes best and is the most fun,”
she said.
Research has shown that when foods high in salt, sugar or fat are
visible and convenient, people will eat them, she explained. “Pair that
with marketing that makes these foods cool and exciting, and the results
are obvious,” she added.
Children will adapt to healthier foods when they are more readily
available and have little or no competition from fast or junk foods,
Heller said.
More information
For more information on healthful eating for kids, visit the Nemours Foundation.
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