Ciao, junk food? Utah board is pondering a statewide ban

No more candy, chips and soda pop in public schools?

The Utah State Board of Education is thinking of banning junk food in schools within the next five years in efforts to curb childhood obesity.

The board Friday will examine some kind of a ban on foods of minimal nutritional value. Most of those foods come through vending machine sales, which bring schools up to $3.75 million a year, largely for activities, according to a 2006 state audit.

But last fall, the board was told a statewide junk food ban would be illegal. And state law doesn't let the state school board run individual schools, said Jean Hill, an attorney at the State Office of Education.

But the ban could be sought without micromanaging districts, said state associate superintendent Patrick Ogden. "We can tell them the standards they have to meet to receive funding for state school lunch.

"The schools are a place where children learn," Ogden said, "and part of that learning deals with good nutritional habits."

Junk food in vending machines has been targeted as a possible culprit — or at least, no help at all — in childhood obesity. One-fourth of all Utah kindergartners through eighth-graders are at an unhealthy weight, and almost 12 percent weigh in as obese, a 2003 state health department study found.

Sugary drinks likely contribute to those waistlines. And they're available in schools just about everywhere.

Nationally, 83 percent of elementary schools, 97 percent of middle schools and 99 percent of high schools have traditional vending machine fare, states a 2006 School Foods Report Card from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

In 2005, the Utah PTA and the American Academy of Pediatrics encouraged school leaders to consider changing machine offerings, while the American Beverage Association recommended limiting soft drink availability in schools nationwide.

Some Utah schools have taken the suggestion. Bountiful Junior High last year substituted healthy food choices for chocolate and chips in its vending machines. Fort Herriman Middle School in Jordan District banned soda vending when it opened in 2005. In 2004, Wasatch School District required 70 percent of school vending machine offerings to be water, milk, 100 percent fruit juices and foods meeting district minimum nutritional standards.

Despite some of those efforts, Utah got an F on the school foods report card. It and 22 other states have no nutritional standards for foods and drinks sold outside the cafeteria or lunchtime.