Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy
On Obesity And The School Lunch Room
Tuesday May 11, 2004

[Sen. Patrick Leahy made remarks Tuesday at a news conference held by the Center for Science in the Public Interest announcing the results of a study that showed schools are filling their vending machines with junk food -- putting the nation's children at risk of obesity.  Leahy is the co-author of legislation that would give the Secretary of Agriculture the power to restrict the sale of soft drinks and other foods of minimal nutritional value in schools that participate in the federal school lunch program. Click here to learn more about that legislation.]

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I want to thank CSPI – the Center for Science in the Public Interest -- and Dr. Wootan for undertaking this survey.  The alarming increase in health problems associated with obesity among our children is tragic – and the fact is that the soda and junk foods lining the hallways of our nation’s schools are a large contributor to that tragedy.

Obesity is now a leading public health crisis in America that studies show is costing the public 93 billion dollars a year in healthcare spending through the Medicare and Medicaid programs alone.

Among our children, at least one in five is overweight… and more alarmingly, the number of obese children has nearly doubled.

We have a responsibility to help our children make smarter nutrition choices.   Schools should set the right example for good eating habits.  Any parent knows that filling up on soda before lunch is not the way to encourage children to eat a healthy lunch. 

Advertisements for soda and candy bombard our children from television, vending machines, and grocery store aisles.  Schools, however, should be a healthy refuge from the outside world, where kids can learn to make the right choices when it comes to their diets.

The federal investment in nutritious school meals and in nutrition education is undermined when schoolchildren have ready access to vending machines selling unhealthy foods on their way to the cafeteria.  We can not sell our children’s health to the highest bidder on a sodas contract. 

Twenty years ago children consumed more than twice as much milk as soda; now they drink twice as much soda as milk.  This is a huge problem, particularly for girls – the teenage years are critical for building up a woman’s lifetime supply of calcium.  We must provide our kids with better options. I have no problem with vending machines themselves, but let’s get vending machines that sell fresh milk, fruits and vegetables into our schools. 

The school lunch program is designed to ensure basic nutrition for our kids in their schools.  Taxpayers have a right to make sure that their investment is not displaced by empty-calorie snacks.

For the last decade I have been fighting to do something about this problem.  Most recently, Senator Lugar and I have joined together to introduce bipartisan legislation to give the USDA regulatory authority over junk foods in schools.   I am hopeful that – working with Senator Harkin and other members of the Agriculture Committee – we will finally address this issue as part of the reauthorization of the federal child nutrition programs.

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