On May 10, the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities held a hearing on using school wellness plans to fight childhood obesity. School wellness plans were created by the Child Nutrition and WIC [Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children] Reauthorization Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-265) for each local educational agency. Local educational agencies were required to establish a school wellness policy by the start of the 2006-2007 school year. The wellness policies were required to: include goals for nutrition education, physical activity, and other school-based activities; create nutrition guidelines for all foods available on school campuses; and involve parents and the school community in the development of school wellness policies.
In her opening statement, Chair Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) said, “As a nurse and chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities, I wanted to give this issue the attention it deserves. There is no need to discuss whether or not childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions in our nation: it has. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Academy of Sciences, among many other institutions, openly discuss our nation’s childhood obesity epidemic. In 2005, it was estimated that nearly nine million children over age six were considered obese.” She continued, “The school wellness policies are a piece of the culture change our nation is experiencing brought on in part by our nation’s prosperity and the global knowledge economy. Today, many jobs tend to be at desks, sitting for hours without physical activity…Physical activity for health and recreation is often sacrificed for the basic needs of daily living. Change for adults is hard, but with children, if we start to educate our youth early, with continued reinforcement of healthy living and wellness, we will establish in our youth habits and values of healthy living and wellness for the future.”
“At the onset, let me say that I believe that parents bear the primary responsibility for ensuring that their children eat well and exercise regularly,” said Ranking Member Todd Platts (R-PA). He continued, “However, schools can and should play a positive role by giving children access to nutritious meals and snacks, nutrition education, and provide time and encourage students to engage in daily physical activity. Over the past several years, schools and programs providing meals and snacks to children have made progress in improving lunch menus to meet federal nutrition standards for fat and calories… However, I believe that more can be done to provide every child with a school environment that promotes healthy food choices and regular physical activity.” Rep. Platts concluded, saying, “As this committee continues its effort to improve child nutrition programs and address the important and complex issue of childhood obesity, we will examine the available science and take into consideration all factors known to contribute to obesity, while supporting the role of local school districts to make decisions about the foods and activities that are available to children in school.”
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) testified about legislation she has sponsored, the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act: “H.R. 1363 will protect our children by ensuring that all foods sold in schools during the entire school day meet sound nutrition standards.” Rep. Woolsey continued, “School nutrition programs face budget shortfalls because we are not fully funding the student lunch program or No Child Left Behind (P.L. 107-110). In order to continue to buy new ovens or pay for health care for their cafeteria workers, schools often make up for these shortfalls by increasing the cost of meals and selling a la carte and vending machine items, food that usually does not have the same nutritional guidelines that meals have…When schools need to sell unhealthy food and drinks in order to make up for budget shortfalls, we are forcing them to abandon their School Wellness programs. That’s why [with] this legislation, along with Chairwoman McCarthy and Chairman Miller leading the way, we have a real opportunity to stop the obesity epidemic. Working together, we will ensure that cafeteria and wellness programs are funded; the support and training required to create the wellness programs is available; and there are sound nutritional standards for all foods sold in schools.”
“Today, children consume an estimated 35 to 50 percent of their daily calories in school. And children from low-income families likely consume an even larger percentage of their calories there since they often rely on the National School Breakfast and Lunch programs, said James S. Mark, senior vice president and director of the health group at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Dr. Mark continued, “Bottom line: it is crucial that schools offer easy access to affordable, healthy, and appealing foods and beverages.” Dr. Mark informed the subcommittee about ongoing collaborative efforts between states and the RWJF to combat childhood obesity; he focused on Arkansas where, since 2003, schools have been measuring students’ body mass index (BMI), eliminating vending machines, and providing confidential health reports to parents. “The BMI analysis indicated that, in just three years, Arkansas halted the progression of the childhood obesity epidemic in the state,” he said. Dr. Marks urged Congress and the Department of Agriculture to develop national nutritional standards for all foods and beverages sold in schools, including those sold outside of the cafeteria. In closing he told the subcommittee, “If we do not act now to reverse the alarming trend of childhood obesity, we are in danger of raising the first generation of American children who will live sicker and die younger than the generation before them. By working to prevent obesity in childhood, we can reduce disease and illness, save countless dollars, spare millions of Americans from needless suffering, and ensure that our children have a promising future.
Chandler Converse, a freshman at Pebblebrook High School in Georgia, shared her experiences as a student participant in developing her county’s wellness policy and as an advocate for enhanced physical education (PE) classes in school. In middle school, her district offered only a nine week PE course rather than full-year physical education classes. Dismayed at the lack of PE, Ms. Converse said she “decided to try to take my concerns and ideas for improvement before my district school board…I told them about the increased risk for children regarding life-threatening diseases like diabetes, heart disease and mental illness that are directly linked to overweight and obesity.” Since then, she has joined her local wellness policy planning group and hopes to have the “some of the junk food in vending machines replaced with healthier snacks.” She asked the subcommittee to make sure that schools adopt and enforce school wellness policies.
Also testifying were: Chevy Chase, co-founder of the Center for Environmental Education Online; Dr. Virginia Stallings, director of the Child Nutrition Center at the University of Pennsylvania; Nora Howley, interim executive director of Action for Healthy Kids; and Phil Lawler, director of PE4life Instruction and Outreach.
