Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — Restricting school vending machine choices to healthy foods and drinks would help youngsters learn to eat better, public health and education officials said Wednesday.

The Senate Education Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 499, which would require all Kansas schools to meet the state education department’s “exemplary” wellness and nutrition guidelines. Those guidelines prohibit sale of high-fat and sugary food in vending machines and school stores. Drink sales are limited to water, low-fat or skim milk, and other healthy offerings.

According to 2008-2009 data collected by the Kansas State Board of Education, 76 percent of school districts that sold a la carte items in their cafeterias – food sold separate from school lunches and not subject to federal nutrition guidelines – met the state’s exemplary standards.

But only 37 percent of districts with vending machines and school stores met exemplary guidelines.

The state education department “expects school food service personnel to improve the nutritional quality of everything they sell,” wrote Sue Storm, the agency’s legislative coordinator, in testimony to the committee.

“School food service personnel are clearly working to meet this expectation,” she wrote. “On the other hand, there is no accountability for vended items other than a federal requirement to refrain from selling carbonated beverages and sugary candies in the food service area during the food service period.”

When Washburn Rural High School designated two vending machines as “healthy,” offering pretzels and other low-sugar, low calorie foods, sales from the machines surpassed those from machines stocked with candy.

“We know if students are hungry, they’ll eat what is offered,” she said.

Chris Tuck, a school nurse from the Seaman district who represents the Kansas School Nurse Organization, said curbing consumption of soda, candy and chips would go a long way toward addressing a recent rise in childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

“School nurses have seen a tremendous change in their populations in the last 20 to 30 years,” she said.

In the 2000-01 school year in the Seaman district, she said, there were three students with Type 1 diabetes and one with Type 2.

This year, she said, there were eight students with Type 1 diabetes and 25 with Type 2.

But bill opponents said the state didn’t need to step in because school districts, beverage companies and others had already adopted strict nutrition guidelines for products sold in schools.

“The irony of this legislation is that the problem has already been solved,” said Ron Hein, with the Kansas Beverage Association. “We’re working voluntarily with schools to improve their programs. It has all been done voluntarily without government intervention and it has worked very well.”

The American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation in 2005 developed guidelines that resulted in the removal of most high-sugar and high-calorie drinks from schools, said Patrick O’Donnell, general manager of Pepsi Cola of Topeka.

“That wasn’t mandated by federal legislation or state legislation,” O’Donnell said. “This was decided because it would be best for kids.”

The Kansas Association of School Boards also opposed the bill.

“School board members are operating on survival mode” with talk of further cuts to education budgets, said Tom Krebs, a spokesman for the Kansas Association of School Boards. “Policy conversations around the school board table are time-consuming. Local communities will make good decisions when the time is right.”