Selling out health? Vending machines force schools to make hard choices

Tyler West is on a health kick.

The Calvin S. Smith Elementary sixth-grader and his friends spend recess time taking laps around the school yard. He hopes to rack up 180 miles this school year, under the elementary's goal to "walk" across the United States.

"I've set a goal for myself. It helps me be more fit and athletic," West said. "It's helped me with my food choices and stuff. It's also helped me with my stamina . . . it will also help me later on in my life."

But can West's zest make the leap to junior high?

Pediatricians, education officials, even the PTA worry.

Because in junior high, chances are apples and oranges at the lunch counter will compete with hallway vending machines stocked with candy, chips and pop — which the American Academy of Pediatrics links to increased risk of childhood obesity, dubbed "the most common medical condition of childhood."

But for principals, vending machines are golden handcuffs in a state with the lowest per-pupil funding the country. Student programs in Granite District, for instance, are supported by a 10-year, $2.5 million Pepsi contract.

"If I had my choice, I probably wouldn't have any vending machines in the school . . . particularly now with issues of childhood obesity," said Mike Sirois, principal of Jordan District's Fort Herriman Middle School, which opened this year with a soda-vending ban. "Educators just get placed between a rock and a hard place. . . . A lot of the stuff we do for (students) actually gets funded by those machines." Still, education officials believe changes are in store, resulting from societal pressures — and a recent act of Congress.

Fighting obesity

One-fourth of all Utah kindergartners through eighth-graders are at an unhealthy weight, and almost 12 percent weigh in as "obese," according to a 2003 state health department study.

Schools are trying to combat the problem.

Calvin S. Smith Elementary, like schools in three-fourths of Utah school districts according to a spring report, is a Gold Medal School. The program comes through the Utah Department of Health and promotes nutrition and physical activity.

Smith students have expanded playground activities; the second-graders walk every morning as a group. Principal Marilyn Laughlin says bullying is down, students participate more in playground activities and seem to be doing better all around.

But some child-health advocates believe schools can do more.

They say schools shouldn't sell junk in vending machines, which have become a mainstay of secondary schools.

"They certainly are . . . contributing to the obesity epidemic," said Salt Lake pediatrician Mark Templeman. "The school districts . . . are making money on the waistlines of our children."