Many Northwest parents have campaigned to ban sugary sodas, candy bars, and similarly worthless foods from school vending machines, based on the reasonable assumption that this would encourage healthier eating habits. But a new study published last week comes to a surprising conclusion: at least in middle schools, the researchers found no link between increased access to junk food at school and higher obesity rates.
The study, published this month in Sociology of Education, tracked nearly 20,000 students and found that while the percentage of kids who had ready access to high-calorie snack foods in school vending machines increased between fifth and eighth grades, the percentage of obese students declined slightly, from 39 percent to 35 percent. (Still, it seems wrong to look for the silver lining in numbers that suggest more than a third of eighth graders are still obese.)
Why? Here’s what lead Pennsylvania State University researcher Jennifer Van Hook had to say:
We expected to find a definitive connection between the sale of junk food in middle schools and weight gain among children between fifth and eighth grades. But, our study suggests that—when it comes to weight issues—we need to be looking far beyond schools and, more specifically, junk food sales in schools, to make a difference.
Schools only represent a small portion of children’s food environment. They can get food at home, they can get food in their neighborhoods, and they can go across the street from the school to buy food. Additionally, kids are actually very busy at school. When they’re not in class, they have to get from one class to another and they have certain fixed times when they can eat. So, there really isn’t a lot of opportunity for children to eat while they’re in school, or at least eat endlessly, compared to when they’re at home. As a result, whether or not junk food is available to them at school may not have much bearing on how much junk food they eat.
Explain that to the Seattle School Board, which is considering relaxing the ban on unhealthy food in high school vending machines that’s been in place since 2004. After area high schools replaced junk food with milk, natural fruit juice, granola bars and baked chips, student association profits from vending sales dropped from $214,000 to $17,000. (That money goes to defray the costs of sports uniforms, support clubs, pay for dances, and publish yearbooks, and students have rightfully complained that the school board hasn’t followed through on its promises to replace that lost revenue.)
Based on those numbers, it seems clear that less junk food is being eaten in school hallways. That jibes with previous studies that have found that the more vending machines found in a school, the higher the number of student snack food purchases.
But clearly, kids don’t just eat at school. One of the arguments for relaxing the junk food vending ban is that kids on open campuses can generally walk down the street to a gas station or minimart and help themselves to all the Doritos, Skittles and Red Bull that they want. In the state of Oregon, which instituted a similar ban on the sale of high-calorie vending snacks in 2007, teachers have also complained that removing junk food from their lounges apparently violates their civil rights to eat cookies.
Some will use this latest study to argue that putting junk food back in school vending machines is a fine idea. Others will claim that it offers a misguided excuse to set a terrible example of what food kids should be putting into their bodies. But that’s not what the study’s authors are really saying: the more poignant part of their message is that if we want to make a dent in what kids eat, we need to reach them long before they can even read The Cat in the Hat, much less a nutrition label. As the study authors argue:
There has been a lot of research showing that many children develop eating habits and tastes for certain types of foods when they are of preschool age, and that those habits and tastes may stay with them for their whole lives. So, their middle school environments might not matter a lot.
Sure, it’s kind of a depressing conclusion. But lots of people with kids will recognize there’s truth to it. It doesn’t mean that we should let 12-year-olds buy all the Ho Hos they want at school. It just means that addressing childhood obesity will be a lot more complicated than banning them and calling it a day.
Ray Kinney
‘Junk food’ as well as many other ‘natural’ foods, that are manufactured and widely distributed throughout our food supply system, are most often loaded with MSG. MSG can be listed on the lable as such, but it can also be hidden within many other ‘ingredients’ up to 60 percent each… without being required to be listed as having been added (other than as just the standard ingredient name). This often results in a very heavy dose of MSG with each process food meal. The lable is very misleading for anyone trying to figure out just what they are eating. Since MSG is derived from a ‘natural’ seaweed origin (but now mass produced in other ways) it can still be said to be ‘natural’. Google search MSG, and PUBMED, and other sources of scientific papers on neurotoxicology to gather credible information on just how this could relate to obesity(and other physiologic effects). There is a lot of anecdotal info out there that should be taken ‘with a grain of salt’ but if you go beyond this, I believe that there is a lot of indication of pathogenic potential within many of our foods that could be affecting us… especially with behavioral effects that relate to issue. There is a huge incentive within the food and chemical industries to ‘one up each other’ to increase total MSG content in products because MSG keeps neurons firing beyond what would be expected with most non-treated foods. This adds bioenergetic stresses onto neurons and the health of the nutrient supplies of the nervous system, resulting in decreased neurophysiology. Study what you can and form your own thoughts, but it may be causative to a significant degree… and there is a strong political bias to keep scientific investigation unfunded.
Georgie Bright Kunkel
Instead of worrying about junk food in school we might think about the school environment in general. How can being cooped up with hundreds of other people in rooms where they have to sit all day be healthy? I am for releasing these young people from being pent up
for hours in a sitting position which isn’t the best for one’s health.
Yes, I know they walk from class to class but it still isn’t
an environment for exploration and being involved in the greater society often enough.
I live in walking distance from several schools but rarely have an opportunity to interact with the students in these schools.
Since my address book got smaller, I now reach out to meet younger people in my neighborhood and at my church. My young friends love to be mentored and loved and I love to exchange thoughts with them.
Barbara
Awww, man. Now I want skittles.
Ron Toppi
“Explain that to the Seattle School Board, which is considering relaxing the ban on unhealthy food in high school vending machines that’s been in place since 2004. After area high schools replaced junk food with milk, natural fruit juice, granola bars and baked chips, student association profits from vending sales dropped from $214,000 to $17,000. (That money goes to defray the costs of sports uniforms, support clubs, pay for dances, and publish yearbooks, and students have rightfully complained that the school board hasn’t followed through on its promises to replace that lost revenue.)”
Here’s my 2 cents on this whole thing about funding for these programs. The money that goes into the vending machines for the food that helps fund these programs comes from where? The school board? The companies that supply the machines? The big food companies? No to all of the above. It comes out of the pocket of the students and parents of the students. why are we looking to the school board to make up the difference? Why do we need vending machines to route money from the students/families to these programs? Doesn’t make sense to me. Just something to think about.
Ray Kinney
The main purpose of a vending machine is to bring in profit by keeping kids coming back for more. If the food offered can be less satiating, the better the chances of more sales.The neuroexcititory MSG levels cause taste-sensing neurons to continue to fire beyond normal, increasing desire to keep eating. The lower MSG levels in more ‘natural’ food selections offered in the machines probably do not have the same draw, and subsequently lower sales.Processed food producers probably have a very strong incentive to add more MSG into their particular products than the competing producer does… so it becomes a war of escalation for hidden MSG inclusion.