Snack attack: Schools try to get the junk out

SAN FRANCISCO — It's not hard to figure out that stocking school vending machines with sugary sodas and salty, fatty snacks is a bad idea. Replacing those culinary culprits with something more nutritionious is tougher.

But a growing number of school districts around the country are trying anyway.

"I can't say enough for what it does for the kids to have the junk out of the machines," says Patricia Gray, who as former principal of San Francisco's Balboa High School oversaw a switch to healthier snacks.

"It was not an easy task," says Gray, now an assistant superintendent with the district, "it was a re-education process."

Efforts to get empty calories out of students' hands are being made in almost every state, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A 2008 School Health Profiles Survey found that fewer secondary schools were selling less nutritious snacks compared with two years before.

Among the findings: Across 34 states, the median percent of secondary schools that ditched non-nutritious snacks increased from 46 percent in 2006 to 64 percent in 2008.

Still, the report found more progress needs to be made.

How big a deal is what kids eat at school?

According to the Institute of Medicine and the National Center for Health Statistics, the average young person gets more than 10 percent of his or her calories from saturated fat, takes in less than two-thirds the recommended intake of calcium and more than double the recommended amount of sodium. And for boys and girls ages 9 to 13, 21 percent get more than one-fourth of their energy intake from added sugars.

Food in the lunch and breakfast programs must meet nutritional standards to qualify for federal reimbursement, but food sold in other school venues, including vending machines, aren't subject to those requirements.

Some states have passed their own laws regulating vending machines, including California, which forbids some non-nutritious snacks. In San Francisco, the school board has a stricter policy, passing a wellness policy implemented in the 2003-04 year that banned sodas (this is now part of the state standard, too) and nixed snacks like baked potato chips.

"It may be less bad for you, but that doesn't mean that it's good for you," says Dana Woldow, a leader in the push for better snacks and co-chair of the district's Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee.