Sales Of Soda and Junk Food Banned In Seattle Schools

[COUNTRYBUMPKIN]

SALES OF SODAS AND JUNK FOOD BANNED IN SEATTLE SCHOOLS

(from Patti Spencer, Seattle Public Schools, Sept. 3, 2004.)

The Seattle School Board has unanimously approved a comprehensive and
far-reaching set of nutrition-related policies designed to provide
students
with healthy food and beverage choices during the school day.
Specifically,
the policies will ban sales of all foods containing high levels of
sugar and
fat, improve the quality and appeal of school meal programs, and
prohibit
contracts with beverage vendors for "exclusive pouring rights."

The district's current exclusive contract with Coca-Cola will be phased
out
within one year. The policies also give direction to the school meal
program
and others to offer fresh, local, organic, non-genetically-modified,
non-irradiated, unprocessed food, whenever feasible.

Seattle Schools have posted links to all their nutrition policies and
procedures at their website:
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/n....xml?wrapper=0 .

DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWS Comment:

This is bigger than you might think: there are 100 schools in the
Seattle
district. Not only that, the entire State of Washington is following
suit.
Fantastic!

Among those we can thank for this initiative is Alexander Schauss.

Alexander G. Schauss, PhD. has held a number of academic appointments,
and
has been a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of
Alternative Medicine Advisory Council and the Developmental Planning
Committee of the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Dr. Schauss is a
Fellow
of the American College of Nutrition (FACN). He is author or co-author
of
more than 100 papers or works, and served as Editor-in-Chief of the
International Journal of Biosocial and Medical Research for 13 years.

Schauss has appeared on television shows including Phil Donohue, Maury
Povich, and Oprah Winfrey. I heard Dr. Schauss speak at the Nutritional
Medicine Today conference in Vancouver earlier this year. I think you
might
like to hear what he has to say about how your kids' school lunches
relate
to their behavior and academic performance.

THE DOCTOR YOURSELF INTERVIEW

with ALEXANDER SCHAUSS, Ph.D. (www.aibmr.com)


DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWS: Dr. Schauss, how did all this good nutrition news
come
about?

DR. SCHAUSS: The impetus for the effort in Seattle and the state of
Washington was laid down 20 years ago following the largest nutrition
study
ever conducted in the world. It involved 800,000 students at all grade
levels in 803 schools representing every demographic profile. The study
started the year after I published Orthomolecular Treatment of Criminal
Offenders. This work was read by the head nutritionist for the New York
City
public school system. My advice was to significantly increase the
nutritional density and fiber levels of the breakfast and lunch meals
served
to students under the national school lunch program. I placed
particular
emphasis on the need to significantly lower or eliminate "empty
nutrient"
foods, such as sugar, unfortified wheat flour, sodas, and most
desserts. To
my surprise, the NYC schools agreed with my recommendations.

DY NEWS: How bad were the foods in the NYC schools?

SCHAUSS: An article in the New York Times described NYC public school's
meals as some of the most tasteless and unappealing in the country,
combined
with well below average national academic standardized test scores;
this
despite some of the highest teacher salaries in the country, numerous
advanced degrees among its teaching staff, and a teacher to student
ratio of
1:17, in addition to students living in one of the most culturally
enriched
environments in the world.


DY NEWS: What was the science behind the better-food, better-grades
concept?


SCHAUSS: The effects of the dietary changes were evaluated by
California
State University. The university sent a team of researchers and data
monitors to NYC for four years, as sequential changes in diet were
instituted. Basically, an interrupted time series design was employed.
When
the study ended in 1983, it took the researchers nearly one and a half
years
to analyze the data. Finally, in 1986, they presented their findings in
a
featured presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of
Nutrition. According to the CSU, the diet changes instituted caused the
largest gain in academic standardized test performance in US education
history. This is particularly significant for a large school district.

Even the testing services began wondering how a school district of such
heterogeneity of students could in one year, for example, gain 8
percentage
points, when the expectancy was no larger than a gain of 2%. The
results
were published the following year in the International Journal of
Biosocial
and Medical Research.


DY NEWS: What was the response from government?


SCHAUSS: A hearing was held in the US Senate. Senator Jessie Helms,
originally a strong critic of NYC's efforts, ended the hearing
commending
the school system, pointing out that the USDA administered school lunch
program was originally established by Congress after WW II to insure
that
children and adolescents would not suffer the degree of malnutrition
and its
after effects experienced in the 1930's during the depression resulting
in
the loss of millions of potential soldiers for the war effort during WW
II.
Few people knew that the school lunch program was started by the
Defense
Department, not the USDA.


DY NEWS: When did the public begin to hear of the NYC study?


SCHAUSS: In 1987, Barbara Friedlander and Arnold Meyer and I
collaborated in
writing a book on the NYC study. Barbara was the Chief Nutritionist for
the
NYC public school system, and Arnold was the information officer for
the
system. The book was published by Simon & Schuster in 1991 (Schauss,
AG,
Friedlander, B and Meyer, A. Eating For A's). It received considerable
positive national press and media attention. Within just a few months
it
sold out. It was never re-published. Eventually I received back the
rights
to the book. It was re-released in 2004 as "Feed My Brain," without any
revisions. (http://www.feedmybrain.com/book/index.html and
http://www.feedmybrain.com/html/history.html)

Feed My Brain describes which nutrients were responsible for the
significant
gains in academic performance, along with a discussion on the effects
of
nutrients on athletic performance. There are several chapters showing
parents how they can systematically introduce the same changes in diet
at
home, via a 12 week diet modification program.

DY NEWS: Certainly you must have run into objections to such sweeping
nutritional change. From whom did your opposition come?

SCHAUSS: Many dieticians and school food service directors claimed that
students were already receiving a "balanced diet" and there was no need
to
reduce sugar, sodas, etc. I even recall a professor of dietetics
stating on
television that there was nothing wrong with a child eating a popular
breakfast cereal that was nearly 60% refined sugar. Seeing that both
academics, often with connections to the food industry, and dieticians
in
particular, created road blocks to improving the diet, the effort was
reorganized by several parents into a determined grass roots movement.

I should also mention that other pioneers should be given credit for
demonstrating the benefits of a highly nutritious, nutrient dense
school
meal program. Helix High School, near San Diego, some 35 years ago
established a salad bar and offered no sodas or sugar-foods in its
cafeterias. It had the state of California's highest academic standing
and
top athletic teams for a decade while this program operated, until the
food
service director retired. Similarly, Fulton County, Georgia, under the
leadership of Sara Sloan, did the same thing 30 years ago, with similar
results. All I did was meet these pioneers, study their approach,
examine
whether the scientific literature supported their approach, and
advocate
replication of their meal programs in other school districts.

DY NEWS: How does it feel to have backed the right horse, nutritionally
speaking?

SCHAUSS: In just the first two days after the Seattle Schools'
announcement,
I have had emails of congratulations from all over the world. It took
years,
but note that not only has Seattle taken the initiative: more
importantly,
the state of Washington is doing the same in every school district in
the
state. Recently, France instituted similar efforts in the entire
country! It
will be interesting to see if what started in Washington state will be
adopted by school districts and states in the USA.


DY NEWS: Some final thoughts?

SCHAUSS: In my opinion, given the rising rates of diabetes (Type II),
heart
disease, obesity, etc., it is high time we begin early in assuring
ourselves
that our children get the healthiest, not most profitable, foods. They
are
our future and they deserve to have schools and parents committed to
insuring that they have a future as healthy adults.

[Ellise]

Bravo! Too bad they won't do that here. Although our schools sell juices and the "healthier" snacks, I still would like to see it all healthy

[halo475]

I second that...Bravo!!! I wish more schools would do it. I tried here, but they weren't interested...they said because of funding. My argguement that they were ruining the health of our future generation fell in deaf ears.

I still bring it up evey once in awhile, but...