Marion Nestle: Fixing School Food

Since 2005, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a Washington, DC-based organization of physicians and scientists who write reports on health topics at the behest of federal agencies, has issued four studies on the causes and consequences of childhood obesity. The latest, Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools: Leading the Way Toward Healthier Youth, appeared in March but vanished immediately with barely a trace. This is a pity. In some respects, the report is sensational. It clearly implies that junk foods should not be sold in schools and that all foods sold in schools — no exceptions — should be foods that promote kids' health.

This IOM committee was particularly tough on soft drinks. Beverages offered in schools, it said, should contain hardly any sugars, no added caffeine, and no artificial sweeteners (except for high school students after school). No sports drinks should be allowed except to student athletes engaged in more than one hour of vigorous activity per day. And my favorite: "plain, potable water [should be] available throughout the school day at no cost to students."

That hardly anyone recognized these recommendations as breaking new ground must surely be due to their complexity and, alas, to their internal contradictions. This was, after all, a committee report. On the one hand, it called for getting junk foods out of schools. On the other, it established criteria that continue to allow plenty of junk foods to be sold in schools in competition with USDA school meals programs.

School meals may be awful, but they sometimes contain real food and do have to meet nutritional standards. In contrast, junk foods — the pejorative for what we nutritionists are supposed to call "foods of minimal nutritional value" — are highly processed and loaded with calories, sugars, salt, and additives to make them sort of look, feel, and taste like real foods.