RedOrbit
By Amy Winterfeld
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Making healthy food choices available to school kids is a priority for many lawmakers. You are what you eat, they say - and plenty of school kids are testing that theory every day. To keep kids healthy, legislators are taking a look at how to help them with nutritious choices at school. From 2005 through 2007, state lawmakers enacted about 46 bills related to school nutrition standards.
What's on the table? Foods and beverages that pack more nutritional punch and carry less fat, sugar and empty calories. California, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon and Rhode Island took different approaches, but all enacted school nutrition legislation last year. Currently, at least 24 states are considering bills addressing school nutrition.
"Two-thirds of a child's nutrition intake for the day is eaten at school," says Vermont Representative Robert Dostis, a registered dietician. "It's important to teach, and provide, good nutrition. Lessons learned today become lifelong eating habits."