Beverage industry agrees to pull high calorie drinks from the nation’s schools
The beverage industry has agreed to pull all its high calorie drinks from the nation’s schools. A coalition of anti-obesity groups led by former president Bill Clinton brokered the agreement. The pact will probably bolster efforts by schools who are attempting to eliminate or restrict student access to sugary drinks and junk food during school hours. The pact will restrict the sale of drinks in elementary schools to water, milk and lower-calorie juices in containers no larger than eight ounces, while in middle schools those drinks can be 10 ounces. Drink size for high school students will be up to 12 ounces. The agreement includes a total ban on the sale of sugary sodas, and it requires that half the drinks offered will be water or low-calorie beverages, such as diet soda. However sport drinks will be allowed if they have fewer than 100 calories. "I think it's a great step in the right direction," says Robin Ziegler, chief of school and community nutrition programs for the Maryland State Department of Education. However, some health advocates are unimpressed with the agreement. Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a public advocacy group that has called for health warnings on soda similar to those on cigarettes, characterizes the soft drink industry’s involvement in the pact "as voluntary as a shotgun wedding." "There is a lot of momentum on these issues at the state and local level," she says. Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., and the American Beverage Association have signed on to the agreement, which is an expansion of the industry's nine-month-old voluntary guidelines.
The agreement also comes as a coalition of lawyers who successfully sued tobacco companies has been threatening to sue soft-drink makers over selling sodas in schools. That coalition includes CSPI. Announcement of the pact also followed a joint report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission recommending that the food, advertising, and entertainment industries limit their marketing of junk food to kids. However, the report says the industries should act voluntarily upon the recommendation without further government regulation.
Washington Post
By Mary Otto and Lori Aratani
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Washington Post
By Caroline E. Mayer
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