February 2006

Eating Right at School: Second in a Series of Two
Districts Weighing Options for Removing Junk Food

By Karen West

Tanya Matos is already whipping up her third strawberry smoothie of the day, and the River Ridge High School student store has just opened for business.

“This is one of our biggest sellers,” says 17-year-old Tanya, student store manager at the Lacey high school. Fruit smoothies are the latest, healthier offering at the student-run store, which is phasing out soda and candy. The store sells up to 50 a day.

Tanya, in her senior year, is worried that dumping junk food will hurt the store’s sales, but she hopes that the smoothie bar, new trail mixes, cheeses and bagels will keep customers happy and revenues up.

River Ridge High is one of dozens of schools across Washington giving their cafeterias, student stores and vending machines complete makeovers.

Soda pop, long a staple of the “in” crowd on high school campuses, is on the outs at many schools. Bottled water and fruit juices are the new – and sometimes only – beverages of choice. Candy bars have taken a back seat to granola bars, fruit yogurt parfaits have replaced ice cream cones, and fried potato chips have lost out to baked soy chips.

It’s part of a “healthy diet” transformation taking place across the state as schools from Pre-K to 12th grade are gradually shedding junk food from their campuses. The move toward better nutrition in schools also has been motivated by new state and federal guidelines.

In October 2004, the federal government enacted new laws requiring school districts to adopt healthier nutritional guidelines and to establish a local school wellness policy by the beginning of the 2006-07 school year. In addition, Washington state lawmakers last year approved a measure directing school districts to develop nutritional guidelines for the foods they sell in schools. The districts were given until Aug. 1, 2005 to adopt new nutritional policies, which also needed to address physical education programs.

While many school lunch menus have been revamped, some schools are still struggling with how to phase out unhealthy snacks and soda pop. That doesn’t sit well with Shelley Curtis, nutrition manager with Children’s Alliance in Seattle. She is calling for a complete ban on junk food in all Washington schools.

She says junk food is still readily available to students in many schools. Although foods provided through federal school lunch and breakfast programs must meet certain nutritional guidelines, there are few federal laws dealing with other food available on school grounds, such as food sold in vending machines, school stores and at fundraisers.

According to the National Parent Teacher Association, 75 percent of the drinks and 85 percent of the snacks in school vending machines are junk foods like sweetened soda, candy and chips. These so-called “competitive foods” compete with the service of nutritious school meals, the PTA says.

Although Washington schools still have a long way to go to be considered 100 percent junk-food-free zones, Curtis says school districts throughout the state are taking steps in the right direction.

Revamping Vending Machines

For years, schools have relied on revenues from soft drink vending machines to supplement Associated Student Body funds. That money typically was used for school programs, including after-school clubs, activities and sports teams. Depending on the school, vending machines and student stores can generate between $15,000 and $100,000 a year.

Now vending machines, as well as the advertising that used to accompany them, are getting a new look: Coke ® and Pepsi ® decals have been replaced by colorful fruit juice and bottled water logos.

New Hampshire-based Stonyfield Farm, which says it is the world’s largest organic yogurt maker, is providing “healthy” vending machines free to five Washington schools on a trial basis. Participating schools are Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, Washington Middle School in Olympia, Cascade High School in Everett, Snohomish High School in Snohomish and Post Middle School in Arlington.

The vending machines, which were donated by a partnership between Stonyfield and Summit Vending of Everett, are stocked with organic and natural snacks, including Organic Valley milk and string cheese, Stacy’s pita chips, Newman’s Own Organics pretzels and Stonyfield’s Organic Smoothies.

A Stonyfield Farm spokesman says the new machines, which are now in six states serving more than 800 schools, are extremely popular.

With regard to snack foods sold on campus, Seattle Public School policies are some of the strictest in the nation, according to Kirsten Frandsen, nutrition coordinator for Seattle, Highline and Tukwila school districts. Only secondary schools can have vending machines, and their contents must be monitored for nutritional value once a month.

In addition, all snack items must weigh under 1.25 ounces and contain less than 30 percent total calories from fat, less than 10 percent total calories from saturated fat and less than 15 grams of added sugar. Beverage choices are limited to 100 percent fruit juice or water.

“We no longer offer exclusively pouring right contracts to soda vendors and have strict anti-commercialization policies to minimize branding,” Frandsen says. “Our current challenge is educating vendors on how to read food labels and offer technical support to our student groups in understanding and interpreting our policies as it relates to them.”

She says when given the opportunity to eat high-fat, large-portioned, high-calorie items out of vending machines, rather than eat a nutritionally balanced lunch, students will, for the most part, go with the vending machine choices.

That’s why she says it is crucial to carry items that are lower in fat, saturated fat and sugar, and those that are smaller in size.

Replacing Lost Revenue

Seattle Public Schools’ revenue from the 85 cold beverage vending machines it has in 27 middle, alternative and high schools has dropped significantly since it banned all soda from machines last year, a spokeswoman said.

For example, for just the month of October 2004, Seattle Public Schools received $19,000 from its contract with Coca Cola ®, representing 54 percent of the revenues generated from the cold beverage vending machines. For the month of October 2005, the district received $5,200 from its new vending supplier, Summit Vending of Everett, which gives the district 27 percent of total beverage revenues.

To compensate for the lost revenue, the district has offered “Revenue Replacement Workshops” for Seattle Public Schools employees. The workshops, organized and paid for by STEPS to Health, King County, helped to dispel myths that the selling of healthful food cannot be profitable.

Participants were given new ideas and resources on marketing healthy foods. The district also hired a consultant to look at different opportunities to replace lost revenue. These recommendations will be coming out later this year.

Some schools are already finding ways to offset losses from vending machine sales. Franklin High School, for example, has put on jog-a-thons to raise money.

“We are going to see a snowballing effect,” says Seattle School Board President Brita Butler-Wall. “Parents are a critical part of this process.”

Other schools, including those in the Bellevue School District, are finding that replacing junk foods with healthier foods and beverages in vending machines has not hurt revenues, and in some cases has even increased sales.

In the Bellevue District, the à la carte and snack shop lines now offer water, 100 percent juice and sports drinks for beverage choices; doughnuts and ice cream have been eliminated to make way for yogurt and string cheese; and more low-calorie snack options like vegetables with dip and small salads have been added. Vending machines are not allowed in Bellevue elementary schools and if available in the middle and high schools, must follow guidelines that exclude all foods defined by the USDA as “foods of minimal nutritional value.”

Despite the changes, a spokeswoman says revenues have not declined in the cafeteria and and à la carte store.

When the three high schools in the Everett School District dropped soda from their vending machines last year, the district allocated $100,000 to the high schools to make up for lost revenue, according to Debbie Webber, manager of food nutrition for the Everett District, which runs 25 schools.

In addition to adding only water and 100 percent juice drinks, the district has limited portion sizes and the amount of snacks students can buy.

“We want to make sure kids don’t make a meal out of their snacks,” Webber says. “We don’t want somebody buying five cookies at a time.”

She says everyone agrees that removing soda from the machines was the right thing to do. “You just can’t continue to pay for kids’ obesity,” Webber says. “If we don’t make the changes, the kids are going to pay with shorter lives and health risks.”
Katy Mathews, who manages the vending machines at Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle, also says sales have not plummeted since removing soda pop and most candy from the vending machines.

“Some of the students grumbled at first, but have since come to enjoy the natural fruit juice and bottled water,” she says. “If you offer healthier choices, they will eat it.”

Mathews, a former nurse who also worked in the catering business, says the school’s coaches also encourage their athletes to drink water instead of soda.

Beverage Industry Adapting to Changes

The nutritional changes sweeping through the country’s schools have caught the attention of the beverage industry.

In September 2005, the American Beverage Association (ABA) approved a new school vending policy that encourages the beverage industry to provide:

• Elementary schools with only water and 100 percent juice;

• Middle schools with only nutritious and/or lower calorie beverages, such as water, 100 percent juice, sports drinks, no-calorie soft drinks and low-calorie juice drinks – and no full-calorie soft drinks or full-calorie juice drinks with 5 percent or less juice until after school ;

• High schools with a variety of beverage choices, such as bottled water, 100 percent juice, sports drinks and juice drinks, with no more than 50 percent of the vending selections being soft drinks.

The ABA urged beverage producers and school districts to implement the new policy as soon as possible. Where school beverage contracts already exist, the policy would be implemented when the contract expires, or earlier if both parties agree. However, some view the policy with skepticism because it is voluntary with no enforcement or oversight mechanism.

The School Nutrition Association’s 2005 Trend Survey of school nutrition directors found that, in addition to offering healthier lunch and breakfast choices, limiting the hours of operation and/or the availability of vending machines is the most popular nutrition policy among school districts. Sixty-five percent of respondents have such a policy in place.

One of those districts is North Thurston County Public Schools, south Puget Sound’s largest district with 19 schools and 13,000 students.

At the elementary school level, students in the North Thurston District are offered at least three fresh fruits or fresh vegetables a day. Students at the district's three middle schools and three comprehensive high schools, including River Ridge, can choose from “quick stop” salad kits and pre-made sandwiches and fruit, yogurt and granola parfaits.

Dr. Maddy de Give, director of Student and Staff Support for North Thurston Public Schools, says the food service changes have resulted in more students eating on campus. “Before they would go off campus to Jack in the Box or McDonalds, but now they are staying in,” she says, noting that the new ethnic foods and the yogurt parfaits are especially popular.

She says the kids have driven many of the changes. “They are the ones demanding healthier options. The kids are asking for water instead of soda.”

Karen West is a Bainbridge Island freelance writer and mother of two.

To read the first story in this series, “Lunch Programs Go on Low-Fat Diet,” from the January 2006 issue, click here.

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