Should children be required to take a serving of fruits or vegetables with every school meal? Should schools increase their focus on nutrition education? Should the bread and pasta kids eat in school consist of at least 50 percent whole grains?
These seem like simple questions, but in 2015, they’re at the center of a hotly contested federal law up for reauthorization. My big question is, “Whose interests are being prioritized?” For some special interests groups, I’m afraid the answer is big food corporations.
This year, the federal government will reconsider the Child Nutrition Act, widely known as the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, which must be reauthorized every five years. In 2010, the CNA instituted significant improvements to school food standards in response to the childhood obesity epidemic. Many of those changes were challenging to implement, and I’m the first one to say that school districts needed more financial and operational support than the U.S. Department of Agriculture initially provided.
Despite the bumps, however, those improvements continue to be crucial for the health of our nation’s children. One out of every three children in this country is overweight or obese, and this generation of children will live shorter lives than their parents, primarily because of diet-related diseases.
This is not just a matter of individual health; it’s a matter of national health. The military is already concerned that soon they won’t have enough healthy recruits to fill their ranks, and the economic impact of diet-related diseases can cripple our economy. Childhood obesity costs this country $19,000 per child. When multiplied by the number of obese 10-year-olds, costs for this age alone will reach roughly $14 billion.
When more than 30 million children eat school lunch every day, school food is a crucial part of the solution, so our children’s health must remain the priority interest in every decision. But our current legislators are more concerned with party politics, sending messages and special interest groups that can deliver the votes to keep them in office.
The School Nutrition Association is also aware that our political leaders don’t always make decisions based on the best interests of their most vulnerable constituents, and they are preparing to address that at their Legislative Action Conference this March. The conference, which takes place over a span of four days, includes lobbying lessons, meetings with congressional representatives and a Capitol Hill reception. The conference is their time to educate key congressional members on their 2015 position paper.
I strongly believe in every citizen’s right to lobby their representatives to ensure that their interests are heard, but there are aspects of the SNA’s process that trouble me.
Industry Influence on SNA Positions
While the SNA represents 55,000 school food service professionals, it also represents corporations and businesses that have a significant financial stake in school food legislation. The interests of these industry members can be (and often are) antithetical to our children’s health. Domino’s Pizza and PepsiCo Food Service do not benefit from standards that eliminate sugary sodas from vending machines or restrictions on a la carte menu items.
It’s true that these improvements will force some school food programs to change their operations, especially when they depend on revenue generated by vending and a la carte sales, but given time, they can shift their operations. They don’t need to show a growing profit margin to stockholders that is predicated on unhealthy food for our children.
The influence of SNA’s industry members can’t be discounted, especially when they provide significant financial support. Top sponsors of SNA’s legislative conference includes Domino’s, Pepsico, Schwan’s Food Service and AdvancePierre Foods. Additionally, corporate sponsors can purchase direct contact with key legislators at the conference. For $25,000, SNA is offering exclusive sponsorship of their Capital Hill Reception, where the sponsor can introduce congressional members to their company’s “needs.”
More disturbing is direct industry participation in the development of their 2015 position paper. The position paper is created by the SNA Public Policy & Legislation Committee, which consists of 16 members. One of the members of the committee is Gary Vonk, listed as “Industry Advisor” and who also sits on the SNA Board of Directors. Vonck is vice president of the Education Division of KeyImpact Sales & Systems, a firm that represents food manufacturers in the food service industry.
While there are aspects of their position paper I agree with — like increasing federal reimbursement rates for school meals — certain key positions are antithetical to our children’s health, and I wonder whose interests they represent. One request in the position paper is that all food that is part of a reimbursable meal could be sold as a la carte items. That means children could buy a slice of pizza every day and call that lunch. This provides extra income for school districts, but it also provides the biggest benefit to the food manufacturers who sell items such as pizza, nachos and burritos to schools.
School cafeterias are places where children learn lifetime eating habits. We must maintain standards that ensure our children’s health, not the profits of big food corporations.
Another puzzling SNA position is on the required serving of fruit or vegetable. The SNA states that “some operators indicated that this meal pattern requirement was working, while others reported increased cost and plate waste.”
The compromise that SNA offers is really a roll back of the requirement: “…a middle way that would give local school food authorities the option to require students to take the fruit or vegetable.” Basically, fruits and vegetables would no longer be federally required, and students could conceivably eat school lunch every day and never consume a fruit or vegetable. Paired with their position on a la carte menu items, the same students could eat pizza or nachos or burritos as their complete meal on a daily basis.
What is equally startling is what’s missing from SNA’s nutrition paper: things that they and their members agree are important both to children’s health AND to the fiscal success of nutrition programs, a priority of the SNA. They aren’t addressing nutrition education, which would help children make healthier food choices, increase student participation in the lunch program and decrease plate waste. And they aren’t addressing long-standing key concerns such as “unpaid meal charges, indirect costs and adequate time to eat.”
Charge to the Hill
In March, when SNA will take their requests to Capitol Hill, they are asking all members to join them. This month’s edition of their magazine, School Nutrition, provides a lobbying guide for its members. Articles explain how to reach out to legislators, how to use social media and tips for congressional visits on Capitol Hill and in school cafeterias. There’s an article on the SNA Political Action Committee (yes, they have a PAC to fundraise for — and make contributions to — legislators that support them), and another on the process behind the requests for the position paper.
To be honest, SNA’s lobbying efforts are smart, savvy and ethical, but I wonder if they are losing sight of why they are lobbying.
Robert Guyer penned the article “Welcome to Lobby School” for the magazine. He also provides a three-hour seminar entitled “How to Successfully Lobby Lawmakers and Agencies” at SNA’s Legislative Action Conference.
In the article, Guyer says of our lawmakers: “They vote in their own self-interests. How do you cater to a lawmaker’s self-interest — within the bounds of the law? Your job, as an advocate, is to show them that what you want is good for them.”
He goes on to say that one of the ways SNA can secure legislators’ support is by helping them stay in office. He suggests a way to do this is by “helping them get favorable media attention (through, say, a cafeteria visit).” He closes by stating that, “To be an effective advocate for yourself, the children you serve and the programs you operate, you must know your government ‘customers,’ what each wants and how to help them get it.”
I’m sure some folks who know how politics work will say that this is an effective approach to lobbying, and that it is a sure-fire way to secure legislative support for your interests. But it sounds a lot like securing SNA member support for the legislator’s interests, and to be honest, I have no interest in that process.
If I’m going to give a lawmaker a tour of my cafeteria, it’s to make sure she or he understands how important healthy school food is for a child’s academic success and future health, not for a photo opportunity. If I’m going to reach out to legislators, it’s to make sure they know I’m working for what is good for children, not what is good for them.
I don’t have a legislative conference or a lobbying guide, but I invite you to join me in representing the special interests of our nation’s children. Contact your representatives right now and tell them to keep the progress established by the Child Nutrition Act going strong. And if you’re an SNA member who wants to make sure that the reauthorization of the CNA maintains healthy standards, please consider signing this open letter to the SNA Board of Directors written by school food activists Bettina Elias Siegal and Nancy Huenergarth.
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Chef Ann Cooper’s Special Interest Group: School Children originally appeared on usnews.com
