Public School Soda Ban

[deathrow]

~Source (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194085,00.html)

The nation's largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all soda sales to public schools, according to a deal announced Wednesday by the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Under the agreement, the companies have agreed to sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat milks to elementary and middle schools, said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton. Diet sodas would be sold only to high schools

Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and the American Beverage Association have all signed onto the deal, Carson said, adding that the companies serve "the vast majority of schools." The American Beverage Association represents the majority of school vending bottlers.

The deal follows a wave of regulation by school districts and state legislatures to cut back on student consumption of soda amid reports of rising childhood obesity rates. Soda has been a particular target of those fighting obesity because of its caloric content and popularity among children. Read more.

Some Commentary from both sides

"I am a Kindergarten teacher in Texas and I think the school ban on certain types of food is absolutely ridiculous. It is the parent’s responsibility to instill good eating habits in their children. The entire child obesity issue at school has gotten out of hand. Perhaps the parents should quit going through the drive-thru in the evening and start making a well-balanced dinner at home. How are the children getting the money to purchase these items of minimal nutritional value at school? My guess would be it's from their parents, and if the parents don't care, why should we?" — Jana (San Angelo, TX)

“I think it's a great idea. I know when I was in school, I was unable to make sensible choices and think for myself. The lure of the soda machines was too much for me to resist. Oh, the number of classes I missed because I was too busy sneaking a pop into the boy's room to chug it down. It's a great sign of what's to come that a small group of irresponsible people have finally been able to coerce big soda to capitulate and only sell ‘healthy' drinks. C'mon people! Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Teach it to yourself and your kids!” — David (Pittsburgh, PA)


What are your thoughts?

And to be fair I am a high school student and it was only a few weeks back we knew about this. Most of us are going to bring soda from BUT they are now telling us we will be SUSPENDED if we do. If you cant tell im against it. And yes i was and still am overweight and you know what its MY fault. I am lazy, i drank the soda. But Im working to change that as i used to weigh 250 at the beginning of the year and now only weigh about 205 now.

And on a side note my school sells on average about 360,000 slices of pizza a year to its 3,300-3,500 students(not exactly sure on the number of students) so maybe there lies another problem along with the cheeseburgers they sell dripping with grease and sauces and the forzen chicken sandwhiches aswell

So i guess to get my caffeine fix im going to need to bring coffee or more energy drinks

[Maro]

How old are you? 250lb!

It's tough but they are doing it to try and head off a major punlic health issue in the future. Freedom of choice is ok but it's our Tax money that will have to front the costs.

It's happened here and in the UK. I agree with it.

[egarrard]

I agree with it.Me too. All we had were water fountains and nobody died from deprivation.

I would go further though and force the coda companies to pay back every penny that they have made since their drinks went into the schools.

[Tivon]

Boooo! :negative

[deathrow]

I am 15 and will be 16 here this summer, but im about 6'1", I forgot to mention that one(more of a football player build)

So I guess my school is going to loose money now oh well. :lmao, so the school looses 50k or so a year by getting rid of soda, maybe they should have passed the law to force the school to use its money and not the goverments.

But i will continue to bring it, because Big Brother does not control me, my eating habits, my life

[tanman_sg]

I completely agree. I hardly drink soda these days, since I went hard-out on controlling what I ate.

My last school, which was SGD$25,000 a year, banned it. All of the parents were very intelligent people who had jobs that could afford such education, and it was the parents that banned soft drinks etc.

My new (public) school sells all sorts of sugar at the canteen. I wonder how people still manage to fall asleep in class.

[Kindom934]

There are a few points I got on this subject.


They are imposing on what students can or cannot drink. They are suspending students just by them bring their own soda on campus. Does soda cause problems in school? Maybe. I don't think they should suspend students from bring soda unless soda causes distraction problems in school. They do however have all the right to ban selling soda on campus (e.g. almost as if the school is promoting to drink soda as there's almost no alternative), however, no right on suspending students because they have soda from home. By placing sodas in availible to students on campus almost encorages them to drink soda as if there's no alternative. Heck, 2 years ago, most soda machines in my school only had soda! Now, they are mostly filled with water. Heck, I felt that I was "forced" to pick soda because there was no water selection in most of the machines before. Now that there is water selection, I am happy and I can drink my bottled water! (also with summer heat, who would drink soda....I can bearly keep myself hydrated with me just drinking water and milk...)

Shock to see how some people can drink so much soft drinks and yet fall asleep in school....

I agree that it is our decision to drink soda and it is after all our live, however, in the end, who does the bill of that come to? Our health insurance pays the medical, thus, higher prices for medial insurance for the hard working folks. I can't stand people who live off the damn health system (guys who are young and "make themselves" into this position). They are just taking advantage of it, no wonder now just to get medical disability, you almost have to be half dead to get it.

Again, it comes down to the parents. Today's busy life makes most parents by pre-made food, outside food and toss in a soft drink. Do they care? I'm sure they do. Can they change it? They could if they can but they can't. This then goes down to what is taught in school as the now days parents is so busy, they can't even teach their own children the basic things. I never liked soda. My parents used to drink soda when I was younger but I didn't care for the carbonation of soda so I never drank soda when I was young. Later on my dad got kidney stones and I think that kind of made him start to slow down on soda consumption. Now, both my parents don't drink soda as a "normal thing". They drink it here and there but not every day.


So to wrap everything up...


I agree that the school has no right to suspend students for bring THEIR OWN soda to campus.

I agree that the school has every right to ban selling soda on campus. The school (under state control) has rights to do that. At home, you can drink what ever.


So in conclusion I think the best way to have a compromise is....


School should allow soda to be brought to school and cannot suspend students for it. School can allow soda to be banned from campus. Soda machines in school should have at lease 80-90% of it's selection to water or fruit drinks so it doesn't force people to drink soda. They should include a machine with milk also to promote drinking milk.



Our school now has most of it's machines filled with at lease 80% of it's selection filled with water, the other 20% is a fruit drink (tropicana)/Green tea drink and either sprite, Pepsi, or Mist. Before (about 1-2 year ago), there was only 1 or 2 machines with water and the rest only had soda..and the machine THAT had water only had 1 selection and was USUALLY out. Back then, I felt almost as if I was forced to drink soda because of that so I had to walk far distants to the other side of the school to get to a machine with water (and thats if it had any). Now because they have water in every machine, I'm happy with that choice.

[Drizzt]

Kindom, I think you missed a couple of points here:

1. The schools are NOT suspending students for bringing their own pop to school.

2. This bill applies to the sale of high-calorie (sugar-sweetened sodas and juices like sunny-D).

3. The schools can still sell low calorie diet soda.

In short - students are not being suspended or expelled for having pop in theif lunchbags. Now if they had a beer of pot in there they might. I agree that the sale of pop on school grounds falls under school board jurisdiction and they can do whatever they want with them. But if they started expelling kids for carrying tyheir own pop to school, there would be hell to pay with the parents.

Deathrow, don't worry about that. Your school admin is simply trying scare tactics on you. If your school is telling you they will suspend you for bringing pop with you and you think they are serious about it, take it to your parents. Your parents can take it up with the school's administration and even sue if they actually try to carry out this empty threat.

[deathrow]

Our school now has most of it's machines filled with at lease 80% of it's selection filled with water, the other 20% is a fruit drink (tropicana)/Green tea drink and either sprite, Pepsi, or Mist. Before (about 1-2 year ago), there was only 1 or 2 machines with water and the rest only had soda..and the machine THAT had water only had 1 selection and was USUALLY out. Back then, I felt almost as if I was forced to drink soda because of that so I had to walk far distants to the other side of the school to get to a machine with water (and thats if it had any). Now because they have water in every machine, I'm happy with that choice.

That is like what is happening here. Majority of machines are filled with soda or powerade with 1 or 2 that have water. But the soda machines are only in two areas of the school, the locker room and the USB room(they control the schools events). But what me and my friends nicknamed the "SS" or Student Store carries all the drinks in the world along with all candy in the world.

Deathrow, don't worry about that. Your school admin is simply trying scare tactics on you. If your school is telling you they will suspend you for bringing pop with you and you think they are serious about it, take it to your parents. Your parents can take it up with the school's administration and even sue if they actually try to carry out this empty threat.

Maybe but my District is insane. They have done so many things with the food we eat and how things are run around here. They stopped outsourcing food to big companies (McDonalds, Subway, and KFC) which most of the them sold bad health food as it was but then they brought in there own menu. Which has food just as if not worse food then what they got rid of.

Also to say might school wont do anything about is still something to worry about. They were going to do away with pep stuff in our school (Cheerleading, song, dance) becuase of a complaint or something close to that., so about 250+ people would loose there activity and be forced to take up a sport(which most of them would refuse) or be dumped back in to PE.And this was recently

[Tivon]

Oh yeah.. that evil soda sugar.. What a load of BS! I guess you all would rather have the kids drinking large amounts of Aspartame and die from brain tumors, brain lesions, and lymphoma? Why not MAKE the kids do more PE and let the schools sell soda. Too many people want to control others. YOUR KIDS ARE FAT BECAUSE THEY PLAY VIDEO GAMES ALL DAY! NOT BECAUSE OF SODA.

[deathrow]

Oh yeah.. that evil soda sugar.. What a load of BS! I guess you all would rather have the kids drinking large amounts of Aspartame and die from brain tumors, brain lesions, and lymphoma? Why not MAKE the kids do more PE and let the schools sell soda. Too many people want to control others. YOUR KIDS ARE FAT BECAUSE THEY PLAY VIDEO GAMES ALL DAY! NOT BECAUSE OF SODA.

So true :KICK ASS

ill be willing to do more PE, i just refuse to join football even though they ask me(i dont like being part of my school :taunt ). But with the new law's that say we need learn more makes it hard on schools

Im also sick of lunch getting shorter(for some people after they buy there "crap" they have about 15min. left) , thats when i need a soda is so i can actully think and not yell at my teacher next period. The past weeks ive been doing so many all nighters to get my work in just becuase im studying all day for finals. My friend just got off a 72 run, yes 3 DAYS studying for finals becuase he's going out of town and his teachers waited till the last week to do it. Give or take a few hours though becuase i think he fell asleep even though he dosent remember.

[Tivon]

Yeah.. I'm not a happy camper without soda. I drink more water than soda, but after long hours I need something to clear my head. Alot of kids push off the PE classes until the very last and then sit around unless screamed at.. I guess we need a boot camp? lol