Nutrition rules: making healthy food choices available to school kids is a priority for many lawmakers.

• Author: Winterfeld, Amy

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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."

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OBESITY CONCERNS

Why all the concern? Kids today are heavier than ever before. Over the past three decades, obesity rates have nearly tripled for children aged 2 to 5 (from 5 percent to 14 percent), more than quadrupled for children aged 6 to 11 (from 4 percent to 19 percent), and more than tripled for youths aged 12 to 19 (from 5 percent to 17 percent). Today, 17.1 percent of kids aged 2 to 19 are obese, and almost 30 percent don't exercise enough.

Being overweight puts children and teenagers at greater risk for developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, asthma, sleep apnea and psychosocial problems such as low self-esteem. Added into the mix are the annual medical costs of obesity estimated at $75 billion for 2003. Taxpayers fund about half of this through Medicare and Medicaid.

New Jersey Assemblyman Herb Conaway, a physician and lawyer, and chair of NCSL's Health Committee, says legislators must do something. "There is an epidemic of childhood obesity that has tremendous implications for future health care spending and quality of life. Government has a right to intervene to ensure that foods offered are healthy. We have to make sure that we train people to eat properly and develop a habit of routine exercise, so they can manage their weight better." Insurance companies should cover obesity treatment, Conaway believes, because obesity is a medical condition.

TIME TO ACT

Childhood obesity studies and the fact that kids are not eating healthy foods in school, make legislators "absolutely" willing to act, says Oregon Representative Tina Kotek. She first proposed school nutrition legislation in 2003, but at that time, she says, everyone thought "we wanted to be the food police." Now, everyone wants to know how to make healthy food available economically. "It's been a huge shift,"...