Growing girth: Childhood obesity is becoming a serious problem in Utah

"A school can tell a parent your kid can't read and they take it a lot better than if you tell them their kid is overweight," said Theurer. Utah has to do more, but progress is slow, she said.

In Florida, for example, lawmakers just passed a requirement that elementary students do 30 minutes of exercise a day. "I don't think we're there yet," conceded Theurer.

In fact, Utah lawmakers dig in their heels on many efforts to curb obesity in young people.

Funds for more PE teachers? Not so fast. Touch the school vending machines supplied by Coke, Pepsi and processed food companies? Don't you dare.

State Sen. Pat Jones, D-Salt Lake City, has been leading this fight for years.

"This is something we need to be concerned about. It's already an epidemic," she said. "Type 2 diabetes is on the rise in Utah; it's affecting our health-care cost, and it's affecting families."

Jones recently challenged her 10-year-old granddaughter to go cold turkey on all soda for a month. The girl did.

"It's about what we eat and how active we are," she said. "We need to hit this on both fronts with our kids."

But even if parents are vigilant about soda consumption in the home, children can generally get soda — and all the chips, candy and doughnuts they want — from vending machines at school.

All but a few junior high and high schools have vending machines.

"I've heard numerous parents say they are doing their part at home only to let their children loose in junior high and high school and have them succumb to rows and rows of vending machines," Jones said.

"I'm not a freak," she said. "I drink a Coke every once in a while." But Jones — like many educators, health experts and community leaders — believes the vending machine issue must be addressed. Schools make money off the machines, but companies can easily put healthy stuff in them, and schools should demand it, she said.

During 2004, Jones' legislative efforts on this subject failed miserably as the soft drink industry effectively stymied her attempt to get more nutritional foods into elementary schools, she said.

Jones' intention was to require vending machines in elementary schools to carry "healthy" foods — like fruits and milk. Only a few elementary schools have vending machines accessible to students, and Jones argued that hers was a preventive measure, as some school districts are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars off vending machines in junior and senior high schools.

But some conservative Republicans balked. Local school officials should be able to make their own decisions about what goes into vending machines, they argued.