US to introduce restrictions on snacks schools sell

For US school kids, the days of skipping healthier lunches in favour of tucking in on cookies from the vending machine are numbered.

With the agriculture department now calling the shots on what kinds of snacks schools could sell, new restrictions would come into effect, aimed at filling a gap in nutrition rules that allowed many students to load up on fat, sugar, and salt ignoring existing guidelines for healthy meals.

According to Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, that pushed for the new rules, parents would no longer need to worry that their kids were using their lunch money to buy junk foods and drinks at school.

Though schools would not be forcing broccoli and brussels sprouts on the students, snacks that would still make the grade include granola bars, low-fat tortilla chips, fruit cups, and 100 per cent fruit juice.

High school students would also be able to buy diet versions of soda, sports drinks, and iced tea.

But several much-loved school standbys, such as doughy pretzels, cookies, and ice cream cups with their own spoons would also be forb idden.

Wootan said the bottom line was that the food needed to have nutritional value.

High national obesity levels were the driving force behind the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act", according to Kevin Concannon, the US Department of Agriculture under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.

He added the US was in the midst of a real crisis, with so may people suffering from obesity.

These snack and school lunch changes would affect 99 per cent of public schools and half of private schools nationwide, he added.

He added, each year 33 million US students ate school lunch, but 50 million attended school.

He said, the new standards would create a nutritional environment for students.

According to Bill Dietz, former director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the Centers for Disease Control, obesity was a "major determinant" for chronic diseases cancer, heart disease and type II diabetes.

He added, the risk factors for those diseases started in childhood, so that changing the trajectory of children's exposure to those risk factors would likely to have benefits down the line.