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By
David Nakamura
Through contracts with soft drink companies and other vendors,
some schools are raising as much as $100,000
a year, money that pays for such things as computer rewiring,
teacher training and Black History Month activities.
Read the fine print of those contracts, though, and the costs start
to sink in: One school in Prince George's County guaranteed sales
of 4,500 cases of soda a year -- or about 50 sodas a student.
Some contracts state that schools could lose money if they turn
off the machines at lunchtime, as required by state and federal
law.
The biggest cost, some parents and health advocates say, is the
health risk to students in a
system that gives schools a financial interest in selling them more
snacks.
One recent study linked soft drinks to childhood obesity,
and others point to tooth decay and caffeine dependence
-- findings that the soda industry disputes.-
The U.S. Agriculture Department delivered a stinging report to
Congress last month recommending that all snacks sold in schools
meet the federal government's nutritional standards.
"One of the biggest challenges school meal program managers
face is the competition with foods that are marketed to children
through multimillion-dollar, glitzy and sophisticated advertising
campaigns," the report stated.
The explosion of vending machines in public
schools is a relatively new phenomenon.
As recently as a decade ago, such machines were uncommon on campus.
But as principals and PTAs began to recognize the potential payoff
of vending revenue during a time of increasingly tight school budgets,
the number grew quickly.
Increasingly, school districts are signing exclusive deals with
one soda company or vendor. Charles County, for instance, signed
a 10-year, $1.75 million deal
last year to sell only Coke products in its schools.
Some communities, though, have fought against the proliferation
of snack machines in schools. In Philadelphia last year, parent
activists successfully blocked a proposed 10-year, $43 million deal
between the school system and Coca-Cola. Last week, the New York
Board of Education settled a 1999 class-action lawsuit brought by
parents. An agreement was reached that schools can sell only nutritious
snacks during lunch hour.
In exchange, Blair promised to place a minimum of 18 soft drink
machines throughout the school and ensure that the student population
remained above 2,100. The machines are
on all day, despite a federal
law prohibiting schools from selling such products during
lunch hours and a Maryland law prohibiting schools from turning
on vending machines until after the final lunch period.
Small wonder. The contract contains a clause that reads: "If
the Board of Education actively enforces the policy in which vending
machines are turned off during the school day, the commission guarantee
will be suspended."
To many parents, the vending machine contracts are a necessary
evil. But these are the parents who are clueless about the importance
of diet as it relates to health.
Washington
Post February 27, 2001; Page A01
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