The Huffington Post, Michelle Locke, July 15, 2010
It’s not hard to figure out that stocking school vending machines with sugary sodas and salty, fatty snacks is a bad idea. Replacing those culinary culprits with something more nutritious is tougher.
But a growing number of school districts around the country are trying anyway.
“I can’t say enough for what it does for the kids to have the junk out of the machines,” says Patricia Gray, who as former principal of San Francisco’s Balboa High School oversaw a switch to healthier snacks.
“It was …

A National Institutes of Health sponsored school-based, healthy living intervention did not significantly reduce obesity in high risk middle-school children, researchers have found.

But while the HEALTHY Study missed its primary endpoint of reducing combined rates of overweight and obesity compared with control schools, the intervention significantly reduced other measures of adiposity compared with controls, according to Gary D. Foster, PhD, of Temple University, and colleagues.
They reported their findings online in the New England Journal of Medicine and at a session during the American Diabetes Association meeting here.
“Surprisingly, to us at least, …

The Guardian, Jo Tuckman, May 27, 2010
The Mexican government is to ban junk food and fry-ups in primary and secondary schools in an effort to combat one of the worst obesity problems in the world.
From the beginning of the next school year, school shops will no longer be allowed to stock fizzy drinks, sugar-stuffed fruit juices, processed snacks, or more local delights such as chilli soaked sweets. Nor will school kitchens offer traditional standards such as fried tacos.
“The kids are going to complain, of course,” the education minister Alonso Lujambio …

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of children who are overweight has more than doubled in the last 20 years. Among teenagers it is even worse with the number increasing more than three times in the same period. This had led to over 10 million children falling into the overweight or obese category. Being obese or overweight at such a young age can lead to serious health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and even cancer.
With a prediction of one in three …

Tara Parker-Pope, January 25, 2010, The New York Times
Can something as simple as the timing of recess make a difference in a child’s health and behavior?
Some experts think it can, and now some schools are rescheduling recess — sending students out to play before they sit down for lunch. The switch appears to have led to some surprising changes in both cafeteria and classroom.
Schools that have tried it report that when children play before lunch, there is less food waste and higher consumption of milk, fruit and vegetables. And some …

New vending machine contracts expected to be approved on Wednesday could mean less junk food — and less money for schools — as the Education Department tries to promote healthier choices for students.
One contract would give exclusive drink machine rights to CC Vending, a Bronx company that plans to sell Pepsi products. It would require drinks sold in elementary and middle schools to have fewer than 10 calories per eight ounces. In high schools, the limit would be fewer than 25 calories per eight ounces. No artificially sweetened drinks or …