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CHILD NUTRITION AND THE SCHOOL SETTING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 6, 2007

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.agriculture.senate.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

KEN SALAZAR, Colorado 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa

MARK HALVERSON, Majority Staff Director 

ROBERT E. STURM, Chief Clerk 

MARTHA SCOTT POINDEXTER, Minority Staff Director 

VERNIE HUBERT, Minority General Counsel 

(II) 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

HEARING(S):

Child Nutrition and the School Setting ................................................................. 1

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS 

Harkin, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from Iowa, Chairman, Committee on 

Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry ................................................................... 1

Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr., a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania ........................... 4

Chambliss, Hon. Saxby, a U.S. Senator from Georgia ......................................... 5

Lugar, Hon. Richard G., a U.S. Senator from Indiana ......................................... 3

Salazar, Hon. Ken, a U.S. Senator from Colorado ................................................ 3

Panel I 

Brownell, Kelly, Founder and Director, Rudd Center for Food Policy and 

Obesity, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut .......................................... 14

Hennrich, Mary Lou, Executive Director, Community Health Partnership, 

Portland, Oregon .................................................................................................. 11

Nece, Teresa, Director, Food and Nutrition, Des Moines Public Schools, Des 

Moines, Iowa ......................................................................................................... 7

Neely, Susan K., President and Chief Executive Officer, American Beverage 

Association, Washington, DC .............................................................................. 9

Thornton, Janey, Child Nutrition Director, Hardin County School District, 

Elizabethtown, Kentucky .................................................................................... 6

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Cochran, Hon. Thad ......................................................................................... 50

McConnell, Hon. Mitch .................................................................................... 52

Stabenow, Hon. Debbie .................................................................................... 54

Brownell, Kelly ................................................................................................. 56

Hennrich, Mary Lou ......................................................................................... 64

Nece, Teresa ...................................................................................................... 68

Neely, Susan K. ................................................................................................ 72

Thornton, Janey ................................................................................................ 78

DOCUMENT(S) SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Engine Manufacturers Association, prepared statement .............................. 94

Society for Nutrition Education, prepared statement ................................... 96

Support of the School Nutrition Association from various organizations, 

prepared statements ..................................................................................... 100

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CHILD NUTRITION AND THE SCHOOL 

SETTING 

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY, 

Washington, DC 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

SH–216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, Chairman 

of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Lincoln, Stabenow, Salazar, Casey, 

Klobuchar, Chambliss, Lugar, Coleman, and Thune. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM HARKIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

IOWA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION AND FORESTRY 

Chairman HARKIN. The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry will come to order. 

First of all, I want to welcome everyone to the Senate Committee 

on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry’s hearing on child nutrition 

within the school setting. First let me begin by welcoming all of our 

witnesses who are here today, thanking them for their contributions to the health and well-being of our kids in school. 

Let me also welcome all of the School Nutrition Association delegates who are here today. This is now an annualized meeting, and 

it is always great to see all of you here and to welcome you here 

to Washington. Again we have a big Iowa delegation, I am proud 

to say, and I am certain Indiana is well represented also, Senator 

Lugar. 

Today we will hear about the progress made and about areas 

where more can be done, and specifically about the role that this 

Committee can play in improving children’s diets. The farm bill reauthorization this year provides us with an opportunity to make 

further progress on these issues, and I look forward to working 

with my colleagues on this year. 

The hearing occurs at a critical moment for our Nation’s children. Over the past 30 years, in large part because of Federal nutrition programs, we have made remarkable strides in ending hunger in the United States. In recent years, thanks to the efforts of 

school nutrition personnel, those of you in this room, the nutritional quality of school means has also improved. But now we have 

a new set of health risks associated with diet which have grown 

rapidly in recent years with serious consequences for our children. 

2

Unhealthy weight, even obesity, among children has increased 

dramatically. Diet-related type II diabetes has reached levels never 

thought possible, with some estimating that one in three children 

born today will develop the disease. Added sugar and fat consumption generally is on the rise among children, representing half of 

daily caloric intake among school-aged kids. I might also add that 

too much salt is being put in all of the foods that all of our kids 

consume. 

I would like to make it clear that when I talk about diet-related 

health problems, I am not trying to demonize any particular food. 

All of us here enjoy the occasional sugary snack. Myself, I prefer 

Dairy Queen, but that is just my own predilection. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. The real issue here is maintaining the proper 

balance in our diets. In recent decades, there have been significant 

changes in the diets of most Americans, especially kids. Since the 

last 1970’s, the percentage of daily calories that kids get from 

sweetened beverages has doubled—doubled—from less than 5 percent to more than 10 percent, according to the American Journal 

of Preventative Medicine. Foods that once were considered a treat 

are now consumed daily, even multiple times daily, by many of our 

kids. According to USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, 52 percent 

of teenage males and 32 percent of teenage females consume three 

or more soft drink servings each day. 

Even as the quality of federally reimbursed meals, as I mentioned earlier, has improved, foods of little nutritional value—

candy, chips, sweetened beverages—have become increasingly 

available and consumed in most schools where kids spend, of 

course, the majority of their day. 

Now, some schools and some States have taken action to address 

these challenges, and I compliment them. But many more have not. 

And the Federal Government I think has done little, and far too 

little—again, I think, in my opinion—to set basic nutrition standards for foods that are sold in our schools. I mean all foods. Without such guidelines, millions of American children fail to receive 

optimal nutrition at school, and the $10 billion that our taxpayers 

spend every year in school meal reimbursements is undermined by 

these foods of little nutritional value available in school settings. 

Today I am happy to announce that again Senator Murkowski 

and I will be reintroducing today the Child Nutrition Promotion 

and School Lunch Protection Act of 2007. It was called 2006 last 

year. I just want to thank all of the people who are here and the 

School Nutrition Association for their strong support of this legislation to set national guidelines—national guidelines—and to give 

the Secretary of Agriculture the authority to set those guidelines 

for all foods in all schools that receive reimbursements for School 

Breakfast or School Lunch Programs. So I just wanted to mention 

that, that we will be reintroducing that legislation today. I hope 

that we can once again have the support of the School Nutrition 

Association and hopefully that with the farm bill up this year, perhaps we can see some more determined action on that front this 

year. 

With that, I would turn to my good friend and also a great supporter of good health, Dick Lugar, Senator Lugar from Indiana. 

3

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM INDIANA 

Senator LUGAR. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I had 

not anticipated making an opening statement, but let me just say 

that this is always a rally of the faithful. And I would say that Tom 

Harkin is absolutely right that it is a time in which those who have 

fostered school lunches and school breakfasts for children all over 

our country, rejoice, we have preserved that thought that these 

meals ought to be available to all of our children, regardless of 

which State or county or locale they happen to be in. And this 

group is largely responsible for maintaining that and maintaining 

support for Senators who have supported that. 

I agree also that it is extremely important that we tackle once 

again the vending machine problem and the child obesity problem. 

The Chairman has phrased this in more artful language, but these 

are issues that come before us perennially, and clearly there is 

now, I think, movement to understand the dilemmas that come to 

school administrations that wrestle with these problems, as well as 

with nutritionists, and, finally, of course, our children. Of course, 

we could set better examples as parents and adults with regard to 

the obesity issue, in addition to working with the child issue, but 

it is so important there. The data is incontrovertible. And I rejoice 

in this hearing and the chance to hear from distinguished witnesses, and hopefully we will have a chance to visit with you. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Lugar. 

I would just mention that Senator Chambliss was here. He has 

to go over to a meeting of the Armed Social Security Committee. 

He will be right back, and I will keep the record open for his opening statement. 

Just for short statements, I would yield now to Senator Salazar 

from Colorado. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KEN SALAZAR, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

COLORADO 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Harkin. I 

very much appreciate you holding this hearing. Just two very quick 

points. 

First, I applaud the Chairman and all of you who have been advocates of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. I think the fact 

that was included in the 2002 farm bill was a very important step 

forward. I know it operates in some six or seven States now, and 

I hope that one of the things that we can do is to find ways of expanding that to more States, including my State, which currently 

does not participate in it. 

Second of all, I think when we look at these nutrition programs, 

what we really are talking about is having our children across this 

country being in a position where they can learn. I always wonder 

when I go to schools how is it that a young person can be in a 

classroom in an environment that is supposed to be a learning environment, but they have not had a breakfast or they have not had 

a lunch and they are malnutritioned. So it very much ties into the 

whole concept of competitiveness and having a great educational 

system and improving upon our educational system here. 

4

I was briefly looking at the numbers for us in Colorado, Mr. 

Chairman, and I noted that in Colorado we have over 1,000 Colorado schools with 72,000 students getting a breakfast from our program. We have 1,600 schools and 330,000 students that participate 

in the lunch programs that are provided out of the programs that 

have been created by this Congress. And so it has a huge impact 

on what we do in my State, and I know that is true for each of 

our States across this country. 

So thank you so much for putting a spotlight on this issue. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Salazar. 

Again, a new member of our Committee, and we welcome him because he is also a good proponent of preventative medicine and 

good health, and that is Senator Casey from Pennsylvania. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM PENNSYLVANIA 

Senator CASEY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having 

this hearing, and I want to thank the witnesses and the advocates 

who are in the room. 

There are few issues that this Congress will deal with that have 

more importance, I think, for the families involved and the children 

involved than the issues that we are going to be talking about 

today. Very few issues have as much impact on those families and 

our economy, frankly, now and in the future than these issues. And 

I want to thank all of you for the work that you do, the important 

work that you do, to make sure that our children are receiving the 

nutrition they need. And I think it is very important for this Congress to focus on these programs. 

I know in my State of Pennsylvania we have just over a million 

people—a million children, I should say, that participate in the 

School Lunch Program. We have got a lot less in school breakfast. 

That is a problem. We have got to correct that. About a quarter of 

a million in school breakfast. So this issue is critically important 

to the families in Pennsylvania, but I know across the country. 

I know that in our State the Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program 

has been a great program, but not enough schools are participating. We have got to expand that for our State and other States 

around the country. 

But I really believe this is an issue for the future of America, for 

our kids, as everyone here in this room knows, to have the nutrition that they need in the dawn of their lives and they get a 

healthy start. They are going to be better educated and much better prepared to meet the challenges of their educational career, but 

also the world of work and the economy that they can build. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I think this hearing is as much about the future and our economic future as it is about the children who will 

benefit, and we are honored to be a part of it. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Senator Casey. 

Now I will turn to our distinguished Ranking Member, Senator 

Chambliss. 

5

STATEMENT OF HON. SAXBY CHAMBLISS, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM GEORGIA 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

I am very appreciative of you holding this hearing today and the 

bipartisan approach we have taken on nutrition in the past. And 

I know as we craft the farm bill this year, we are going to work 

very close together to make sure the nutrition title is exactly the 

way it should be. 

I welcome all of our visitors here today as we discuss the child 

nutrition programs in the school setting, and I particularly want to 

welcome all of my good friends from Georgia who are up today to 

observe this hearing. 

Good nutrition is not only important for good health, but also for 

proper cognitive development in our children. Our school nutrition 

programs are a key component in our effort to provide healthy, nutritious meals to our Nation’s school children. According to the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture, which administers these programs, 

nearly 85 million school breakfasts and over 210 million school 

lunches were served in Georgia during fiscal year 2006. For too 

many of our children, the school nutrition programs are the healthiest, most balanced meals of their entire day, so thank goodness we 

have got great nutrition folks in our schools that are helping look 

after these children. 

We appreciate the efforts of our school nutrition professionals, 

many of whom are visiting today, for the job they perform to ensure that our young people have a healthy start on life. I know 

from the school teachers in my family of the importance of good nutrition in our schools, especially for our children’s development. 

Moreover, the food for our school meals programs come from U.S. 

farmers, which obviously helps agriculture. School nutrition programs are good for families, good for farmers, and good for the future of America. 

Nutrition programs have been and continue to be an important 

part of the farm bill. Although the Committee will be facing budgetary pressures from all interested parties when writing this farm 

bill, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working together to address 

the nutritional issues which are critical to the well-being of our Nation’s children. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to our witnesses’ 

testimony today. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Chambliss. And we have 

a great panel here today that covers, I think, the whole scope of 

what we are talking about here. 

We have Ms. Janey Thornton, Child Nutrition Director from Hardin County School District in Elizabethtown, Kentucky; Ms. Teresa 

Nece, Director of Food and Nutrition at Des Moines Public Schools, 

Des Moines, Iowa, who I hope is going to speak about the Fruit and 

Vegetable Program that Senator Salazar mentioned; Ms. Susan 

Neely, President and CEO of the American Beverage Association 

here in Washington; Ms. Mary Lou Hennrich, the Executive Director of the Community Health Partnership in Portland, Oregon; and 

Mr. Kelly Brownell, Founder and Director of the Rudd Center for 

Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who has met with us before and has been a witness before 

6

us in the past, and is one of the really guiding lights in terms of 

nutrition in the United States of America. 

We thank you all for being here, and we will ask you each—I will 

just say that all of your statements will be made a part of the 

record in their entirety. What I would like you to do is if you could 

just sum up your points within 5 minutes each. We will go down 

the line in the order in which I introduced you, and then we will 

open it for questions and answers with the Senators. 

So, first, I would turn to Ms. Janey Thornton. 

STATEMENT OF JANEY THORNTON, CHILD NUTRITION DIRECTOR, HARDIN COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, ELIZABETHTOWN, 

KENTUCKY 

Ms. THORNTON. Chairman Harkin, Senator Chambliss, members 

of the Committee, thank you very, very much for this hearing on 

child nutrition and for continuing the unique tradition of hosting 

this hearing during our legislative annual conference. I am Janey 

Thornton, President of the School Nutrition Association, from Hardin County, Kentucky. 

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to report this morning that, if our 

membership and our Industry Advisory Board are any judge, support for your legislation is increasing. SNA believes strongly that 

the Secretary of Agriculture should have the authority to regulate 

the sale of food and beverages throughout the entire school day and 

throughout the entire school. We cannot have one set of a la carte 

standards in the cafeteria and then another set of standards or no 

standards down the hall. 

We need consistent standards in the school for two reasons: to 

promote wellness, but also to send a consistent nutrition message 

to our students. As every parent knows, if we tell our children one 

thing but they see us doing something else, they are going to follow 

our actions and ignore our words. Schools must also practice what 

they preach, and with the foods we sell and the nutrition education 

that we are teaching. Therefore, we hope Congress will move forward with this important legislation. 

If the Congress is going to move forward in this area, however, 

it is our hope and our suggestion that nutrition guidelines within 

the cafeteria also be standardized. Current law requires that meals 

served be consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 

However, in recent years, many States and even some local districts have come to interpret those dietary guidelines differently. 

The ever increasing range of nutrition standards is creating a 

significant problem for our schools as well as for our industry sponsors. The variety and disparity of standards throughout the country 

are forcing an increase in our food cost, which we cannot accommodate given our current Federal reimbursement. 

Mr. Chairman, whatever nutrition a child needs in Iowa are the 

same nutritional standards that a child needs in Georgia or in Kentucky or in any other State. 

As we focus on improving the quality of school meals, we must 

not forget about those low-income students who qualify for the program but cannot afford to participate. I am referring, of course, to 

the reduced-price school meals. Students from families with incomes between 130 and 185 percent of the poverty level are 

7

charged a maximum of 40 cents for lunch and 30 cents for breakfast. While that may not sound like a lot of money, it is keeping 

students out of the program. SNA firmly believes that if a family 

qualifies for free WIC benefits, they should also qualify for free 

meals. 

Every day our SNA members are confronted with children who 

cannot afford that fee. Sometimes our members actually reach into 

their own pockets to pay the fee. Some schools might hold up that 

report card until the fees are paid. This is a real problem. There 

are families in America who cannot afford the 40 cents per child 

for a nutritious school lunch and 30 cents for breakfast. 

With my district being adjacent to Fort Knox, I hear almost 

weekly from many of our military families about this very concern. 

We are not here today urging Congress to expand the free meal 

program and eliminate the reduced-price program. We are just urging Congress to finally fund the reduced-price pilot program to determine once and for all whether it is the fee as opposed to some 

other variable that might be keeping those low-income children 

from the program. According to USDA, a valid test can be implemented for approximately $23 million over a 3–year period. 

Finally, as we celebrate National School Breakfast Week, we are 

asking the Committee to provide USDA commodities for the School 

Breakfast Program. As you know, USDA currently provides approximately 18 cents in commodities for each lunch served to almost 30 million children in the program. By comparison, no commodity support is provided to the School Breakfast Program and 

the 9 million children who participate, even though, as you have 

mentioned, all available research indicates that this is the most important meal of the day. School breakfast commodity support would 

help us expand this program and would at the same time support 

American agriculture. We are suggesting that 10 cents per meal be 

provided in USDA commodities for each breakfast served. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, that concludes our 

formal statement. We will be most pleased to answer any questions 

you may have, and we certainly thank you again for this opportunity to address you today. Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Thornton can be found on page 

78 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Madam President, thank you very much for 

a great statement, and thanks for your great leadership of this organization. 

Ms. THORNTON. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Now we will turn to Teresa Nece, a long-time 

friend of mine, from Des Moines. Welcome back again, Teresa. 

STATEMENT OF TERESA NECE, DIRECTOR, FOOD AND NUTRITION, DES MOINES PUBLIC SCHOOLS, DES MOINES, IOWA 

Ms. NECE. Thank you. Chairman Harkin and members of the 

Committee, I am Teresa Nece, Food and Nutrition Director, Des 

Moines Public Schools, Des Moines, Iowa. I am pleased to be here 

today representing my school district, other Iowa schools, as well 

as schools across the Nation. Mr. Chairman, you and each Committee member are to be commended for spending your time working on behalf of our Nation’s children. The children deserve policies 

8

and programs that will contribute to their health and well-being. 

My comments today will be focused on the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program currently operating in 14 States and on three Indian 

Tribal Organizations, representing 375 schools. 

Des Moines has been fortunate to have had four of its 59 schools 

participate in the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program during the 

past 5 years. Currently we have two program participants reaching 

approximately 900 students reaping program benefits each and 

every day. 

The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program has been very successful 

in participating schools across the Nation because the fruits and 

vegetables are available free to all students. I feel this is a very important aspect of the program design. One of the original reasons 

for offering fresh fruits and vegetables to students throughout the 

day was to demonstrate that when fresh fruits and vegetables were 

made readily available, students would increase their consumption 

of fruits and vegetables and decrease consumption of candy, chips, 

and other similar, less healthy snacks. The theory has worked. 

Our students have definitely enjoyed the experience of not only 

trying familiar fruits and vegetables but also new and different 

fruits and vegetables. 

One of our first learning experiences in a middle school was to 

offer Bartlett pears in the classroom. We discovered that the sixth, 

seventh, and eighth grade students thought fresh pears were white, 

soft, and sliced. Many of the students had never seen or tasted a 

whole fresh pear. Classroom teachers discovered that they had 

many teachable moments with the fruits and vegetables. They embraced the program and encouraged their students to try new foods 

each and every day. What more could we ask of our teachers? 

We have noted improved eating habits of the students as well as 

a healthier school environment in our buildings. One of the greatest benefits of the program has been the creation of a school community focused on healthy foods offered throughout the day—before 

school, during school, and after school. This environmental change 

has taken work on the part of all staff and students. In our schools, 

we offer fresh fruits and vegetables in the classrooms every day, in 

the school cafeteria, in the office, and in the nurse’s office. 

Parents have told us about their students looking forward to the 

fruits and vegetables at school, as well as about shopping experiences at the grocery store when the students request the purchase 

of fruits and vegetables that they have had during the week. 

Teachers and principals have stated many times one of the unexpected benefits of the program is the opportunity for students and 

teachers to talk about something other than academics. In Des 

Moines, the piece of fruit or vegetable has brought a neutral focal 

point for teaching life skills and has supported the development of 

a school family focused on success for all students. 

Teachers have watched their learning behavior of their students 

change, creating a relaxed classroom atmosphere that enhanced 

the learning experience. They identified that their students are 

more ready to learn with the availability of the fresh fruits and 

vegetables in the classroom. 

The program has been a positive experience for our district. I 

have had requests for expansion of the program into schools within 

9

my district because of the positive impact of the program. Our 

State child nutrition director has received numerous calls from 

other schools in Iowa requesting information on how to get involved. 

This program impacted the lives of our students by creating an 

environment focused on developing good eating habits. This program has supported the role of the school meal programs and has 

enhanced the learning environment in the total school. I know that 

our Iowa experiences mirror experiences from across the Nation. 

Chairman Harkin and members of the Committee, the Fresh 

Fruit and Vegetable Program has demonstrated changed student 

food consumption practices. Children are eating more fruits and 

vegetables. Healthy fruits and vegetables are chosen more often by 

students, decreasing the consumption of less healthy snack foods. 

In summary, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, the 

Fruit and Vegetable Program has been remarkably successful, not 

just in fulfilling its stated purpose of increasing fruit and vegetable 

consumption, but also in helping to create something much bigger, 

namely, a culture of wellness and health promotion. I strongly believe in the value of this program and would like to see the program expanded. Additionally, I would like to see the school meal 

programs enhanced with additional funding to support infrastructure needs to facilitate increased offerings of fruits and vegetables 

as a part of the School Breakfast and Lunch Programs. 

I look forward to my continued work in impacting the lives of 

students and families each day in Des Moines. And that concludes 

my statement, and I thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Nece can be found on page 68 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Nece, thank you very much, and thanks 

for your great leadership in Iowa in this program. I am going to 

have more questions for you when we get to our question period. 

Now we turn to Susan K. Neely, President and CEO of the American Beverage Association. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF SUSAN K. NEELY, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION, 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. NEELY. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Chambliss, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today to discuss child nutrition and the 

school setting. I am Susan Neely, President and CEO of the American Beverage Association. We represent the nonalcoholic refreshment beverage industry and have done so for almost 90 years, 

which means we represent producers, distributors, franchise companies that market hundreds of brands, bottled water, flavored 

water, fruit juice, ready-to-drink teas, coffees, fruit drinks, carbonated soft drinks, dairy-based beverages, and sports drinks. I am 

also the mother of two elementary school aged children and originally from Iowa. 

Mr. Chairman, the American Beverage Association agrees that 

the obesity crisis is a complex national challenge that requires us 

to re-examine old practices and find new solutions. All of us—policymakers, parents, educators, industry, and community leaders—

10

have a responsibility to do our part to help teach our children how 

to have a healthy lifestyle. I am proud to report that the American 

beverage industry is doing just that. The Committee invited me 

here today to talk about our recently adopted school beverage 

guidelines which limit calories and increase nutritious offerings in 

the beverages that are available in schools. 

Last May, ABA, Cadbury Schweppes, Coke, and Pepsi teamed up 

with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint initiative of 

the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, to develop these new guidelines. In a nutshell, the only 

beverages available in elementary and middle schools will be 

water, low-fat and nonfat milk, and 100 percent juice. The milk 

and juice products will be portion controlled to keep calories in 

check while delivering key nutrients children need. For older students in high schools, the product mix is broadened to include lowand no-calorie beverages, light juices, and portion-controlled 

servings of sports drinks and other beverages that are all capped 

at 100 calories per container. 

The most dramatic effect of the guidelines, once fully implemented, is that full-calorie, carbonated soft drinks and fruit drinks 

will no longer be available in schools. Mr. Chairman, I repeat, we 

will no longer sell full-calorie soft drinks in schools, even high 

schools. 

We agree with parents and educators that schools are special 

places and play a meaningful role in shaping our children’s health. 

The guidelines were designed using nutrition science, including the 

Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005, as well as the American 

Heart Association’s Dietary Guidelines for Healthy Children and 

2006 Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations. 

We think we have struck the right balance with these guidelines. 

A recent national survey found that 82 percent of parents surveyed 

support our school beverage guidelines. It is important to note that 

they support the guidelines over more restrictive alternatives. 

When asked to choose between the guidelines and a policy providing only water, low-fat milk, and 100 percent juice in all grades, 

K through 12, parents support the guidelines by a margin of 56 

percent to 42 percent. When asked if they support the guidelines 

or a complete ban on vending in schools, they chose the guidelines 

by a margin of 82 percent to 14 percent. 

Clearly, parents believe we have hit the mark with our policy. It 

is based on sound nutrition and reflects the reality of how most of 

us live. Like grownups who like our treats, kids want to drink both 

nutritious and enjoyable beverages. Through these guidelines, 

schools can help our children learn how to choose beverages that 

are lower in calories and/or high in nutrition. 

Now, the No. 1 question we get about our guidelines, even from 

those who say they support it, is: Will they be implemented? They 

are only voluntarily. I can assure you that the beverage industry 

is working hard to implement the guidelines. In the past 10 

months since we signed the Memorandum of Understanding with 

the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, our companies have spent 

hundreds of hours training their marketing and sales teams. The 

teams have reached out to school contract partners to educate 

them. We are reformulating products. We are creating new package 

11

sizes to meet the smaller portion sizes required in the guidelines. 

And we are retrofitting vending machines to accommodate the 

changes in package sizes. Mr. Chairman, our policy is indeed a national policy as our companies are implementing it in each one of 

their schools across the country. 

The School Beverage Guidelines MOU requires full implementation of the guidelines by August 2009. The first progress report on 

implementation of the guidelines will be completed in August. We 

fully expect the August report to show a continued decline in the 

sale of full-calorie soft drinks in our schools. 

The bottom line: The School Beverage Guidelines are common 

sense, supported by science, backed by parents, responsive to concerns about calories and nutrition, and they are already being implemented across the country. We are making it happen in our 

schools. 

Mr. Chairman, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to appear 

before the Committee and want to conclude by stating again how 

proud we are of these new school beverage guidelines. While we applaud this Committee’s efforts to find new ways to address good 

nutrition, we hope it will recognize and support the significant effort by this industry to change the beverage offerings in schools 

that is already well underway. We will continue to do our part to 

support healthy, happy kids. After all, we are parents, too. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Neely can be found on page 72 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. I can assure you that we recognize it, and we 

compliment the industry for taking these bold steps. I think it is 

moving in the right direction. 

Ms. NEELY. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much. 

And now we turn to Mary Lou Hennrich, Executive Director of 

Community Health Partnership in Portland, Oregon. Ms. 

Hennrich? 

STATEMENT OF MARY LOU HENNRICH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY HEALTH PARTNERSHIP, PORTLAND, OREGON 

Ms. HENNRICH. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Senator 

Chambliss, members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to allow me to testify today and, as you said, my name is 

Mary Lou Hennrich. My 35–year career as a public health nurse 

and administrator finds me currently serving as the Executive Director of Community Health Partnership, Oregon’s Public Health 

Institute, based in Portland, Oregon. Community Health Partnership is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to improving the health of Oregonians. In recent years, our organization 

has led statewide efforts to improve the nutritional quality of foods 

and beverages in schools, similar to what you are trying to do nationally. I have advocated for stronger school nutrition standards 

in Portland Public Schools, which is my local school district and 

Oregon’s largest district. 

The challenges we have encountered in our efforts at the local 

and State level—and in Oregon, we have been working for nearly 

12

6 years to pass State standards for food sold outside the National 

School Lunch Program—have made it very clear to us that we need 

strong Federal leadership on this issue. That is why our organization has endorsed Senators Harkin and Murkowski’s Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2006 and will 

do so in 2007, and we urge the Senate to pass it this year. 

I am going to speak a little bit about local control because this 

seems to be an issue that comes up at the State level where, when 

we try to do things on a statewide basis, we are told local districts 

want to do it. I think when the Federal Government tries to do it, 

they are told the locals are the States. So it is kind of like everybody is passing the buck on, you know, who is the local and everybody else should be doing it. 

I think parents do not care whether school food standards come 

from Congress, a State, or the local school district. To them, local 

control means that they have control over what their kids are eating in school. And parents have told us, loudly and clearly, that 

they want the foods sold in their children’s schools to be healthy. 

The sale of low-nutrition foods in schools undermines parents’ ability to help their children eat a healthful diet. Parents should not 

have to worry that their children will spend their lunch money on 

low-nutrition foods from vending machines, school stores, and a la 

carte in the cafeteria instead of on balanced school meals. 

While we respect that many school-related policies are left to 

local control, school foods are different. School foods have been a 

Federal issue since the Truman administration. Congress and the 

USDA set detailed standards for school lunches and breakfasts. 

And as Senator Harkin said, the Federal Government invests huge 

amounts of money—$10 billion in fiscal year 2006 alone—in school 

lunches and breakfasts. Selling low-nutrition foods in schools undermines that major taxpayer investment and the efforts to ensure 

that school meals are healthy. 

The majority of the Nation’s 14,000 school districts are not 

equipped to develop science-based nutrition standards for school 

foods. A recent national analysis found that only 20 percent of the 

largest 100 school districts in the country have set specific nutrition standards for a la carte and vending in their recently passed 

local wellness policies. In Oregon, our organization analyzed the 

174 local district wellness policies that were filed with the State 

Department of Education. That is out of what should have been 

189, but there were a few districts that did not even turn in a policy. And we found the exact same percentage, which was 19.5 percent of policies, set any specific guidelines around foods sold outside the National School Lunch Program. So the local wellness policies did not do it. 

All other things being equal, local control is an important consideration. However, the inherent value of local control must be 

weighed against the significant threat that childhood obesity poses 

to our children’s health. I think as Senator Harkin clearly said this 

morning, we have got diabetes on a rampant rise, and almost 40 

percent of girls and one-third of boys are on track to develop dietrelated diabetes. We have got to re-examine the value and effectiveness of local control with regard to children’s health and nutrition. 

13

Things have drastically changed in schools in the past 20–plus 

years. When my oldest child, who is now 32 and is a teacher, was 

in school, 99 percent of eating happened in the cafeteria. Now that 

she is a teacher, she reports that more than 75 percent of eating 

occurs in hallways and classrooms. Indeed, there is a lot of food 

sold through venues other than school meals. Nationally, 83 percent of elementary schools, 97 percent of middle, and 99 percent of 

senior high schools sell foods and beverages out of vending machines, school stores, or a la carte. Unfortunately, too many of the 

choices offered to children, as you have heard, in these venues are 

of poor nutritional value. They also undermine what is being 

taught in the classroom. We need to sell what we tell. 

There are revenue considerations. The sale of low-nutrition food 

outside school meals programs undermines school lunch. For example, when Jefferson County School District in Kentucky set nutrition standards for items sold through its a la carte line, it experienced an annual decrease of $3 million in a la carte revenue. However, at the same time it saw a $6.9 million annual increase in 

school meal revenue. We are finding that in Portland. It has 

changed its offerings dramatically and now is seeing an increase in 

the money they are getting from national school meals, and the 

kids are getting healthier foods. 

So I have other things in my testimony, but I think you can ask 

me questions on that. Our organization did what turned out to be 

the sentinel study on soda contracts, and I can answer questions 

about the revenue, the changes. We applaud the ABA for their voluntary guidelines but do point out they are voluntary. Schools 

must approach and ask to have these implemented. We believe that 

those guidelines should be the law of the land, and we would hope 

that would happen under your bill. 

So thank you very much. I urge the Committee and the rest of 

the Senate to set national nutrition standards for foods and beverages sold out of vending machines, school stores, and a la carte. 

It is important that Congress act now to address this pressing 

problem. Children are only children once, and every year that we 

wait and debate this and do not move forward, we have lost a year 

in that child’s life. 

Thank you very much, and I would be glad to answer questions 

later. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hennrich can be found on page 

64 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Ms. Hennrich, and I 

will come back to the part of your statement that you did not mention about what happened in Portland with the removal of soft 

drinks. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Yes. 

Chairman HARKIN. Now, Dr. Kelly Brownell, Professor of Psychology and Epidemiology and Public Health at the Rudd Center 

at Yale University. Welcome back again, Doctor. 

14

STATEMENT OF KELLY BROWNELL, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, 

RUDD CENTER FOR FOOD POLICY AND OBESITY, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 

Mr. BROWNELL. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Senator 

Chambliss, and colleagues. Being a proud native of Indiana, I am 

especially happy to make Senator Lugar’s acquaintance. 

The window is open at this particular moment in history. The 

public is interested in child nutrition. They are willing to take action, and they are willing to have their elected leaders take action. 

We realize as a Nation that our children need protecting from a difficult and challenging food environment, and we also realize that 

the foods children eat in schools affects their health, well-being, 

and also our national presence in education. And a malnourished 

child, which could mean an overnourished child, will not perform 

well in school. 

I would like to introduce a concept that economists and public 

health people have been looking at for a number of years called 

‘‘optimal defaults.’’ The idea is that one hopes to create an environment where healthy behavior becomes the default rather than the 

reverse. So take lead paint, for example. We have legislation that 

forbids the use of lead paint, so when people paint, it becomes a 

healthier behavior by default. Air bags in cars would be another example. Unleaded gasoline would be yet another example. There are 

a number of precedents like this where we try to create an environment that makes healthy behavior the default. 

Unfortunately, in the food environment, unhealthy behavior has 

become the default, and it has become very difficult for parents to 

offer a good nutrition environment for their children, particularly 

when it is occurring in schools. 

I am happy to come with a scientific perspective on this, and I 

would like to discuss several things that we know not to be true 

and several things we know to be true. 

First is the myth that schools will lose money if they get rid of 

what we commonly know as junk food. As the previous speaker 

mentioned, it has not proven to be the case. Schools will either stay 

neutral or make more money if they switch out the unhealthy for 

healthier food. 

The second myth is that children will compensate outside of 

schools for the unhealthy food that they are not getting in schools. 

Colleagues of mine at Yale University have recently completed a 

study finding that not to be the case, that what happens is children 

tend to eat the same outside of schools, but, of course, improve 

what they eat in schools because of the better nutrition environment. 

The third issue is that local control is sufficient. We have done 

a study in Connecticut, my colleagues at the Rudd Center, looking 

at school wellness policies. There is remarkable variation in the 

way the schools either develop their policies, much less implement 

them, ranging from very aggressive and progressive nutrition-related school policies to something that is nothing more than a paragraph on a sheet of paper. And, hence, local control does not seem 

to be getting the job done, and if we wait for school district by 

school district to make the changes, I fear we have a very long wait 

indeed. 

15

Let me turn my attention to things we know to be true. First, 

the food landscape has changed remarkably for the American child. 

From 1994 to 2004, for example, there were more than 1,600 new 

candy products introduced specifically targeted to children. There 

were 52 fruit and vegetable products. This typifies the food landscape. 

Science has advanced a great deal during that time, and we have 

learned an awful lot about what contributes to child obesity and to 

poor nutrition in general. For example, we have a paper about to 

come out in the American Journal of Public Health looking at the 

impact of sugared beverage consumption on children’s nutrition 

and their risk for obesity and diabetes, and yet again the science 

shows clearly, in words that Senator Lugar used, incontrovertible 

evidence that soft drinks and sugared beverages are related to poor 

health, poor nutrition, and risk for diseases like diabetes. There is 

no longer any dispute on this in the scientific literature. 

So what we have is that the defaults are sub-optimal. Children 

are raised in a difficult environment. Schools become a wonderful 

opportunity to turn that tide around. It is a place where children 

spend many hours. It is a place where they learn lessons about nutrition as well as eat the foods there, and creating a good environment for them can be a remarkable opportunity for us as public 

health advocates. 

The schools should be more than a good nutrition environment, 

but it should teach good nutrition lessons. And having branded 

products in machines interferes with that because children become 

loyal customers at early ages and the fact that a child may see a 

beverage machine that has a somewhat healthier selection of beverages but still is branding certain soft drink brands can be quite 

difficult. 

Schools, as I said, are a wonderful place to help, and I would like 

to end with the following idea. I have a sheet here that I believe 

is available to members of the Committee that shows trends in 

public opinion over the last 5 and 6 years. And if you ask the public whether childhood obesity is a serious problem, what began as 

a 74–percent endorsement in 2003 is now a 93–percent endorsement. If you ask Americans in polls not done by the food industry 

whether they favor soft drink and snack food bans in schools, the 

number began at 47 percent in 2001, went to 59 percent, 69 percent, and 83 percent in 2006. So it looks like it is a winning issue, 

at least from my perspective, where public opinion combines with 

science to provide a very compelling need to change nutrition in 

schools. 

I am delighted that the Committee is looking into this. I find it 

a very positive sign. And I think in 5 and 10 years we will have 

a much better food environment in schools, and I am delighted that 

2007 may be a place to start that journey. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brownell can be found on page 

56 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Dr. Brownell, thank you very much for your 

testimony and for your great leadership in this area. 

We will have just a series of rounds of questions of 5 minutes, 

and I will start with my round of questions at 5 minutes. 

16

Ms. Thornton, as President of the School Nutrition Association, 

again, I compliment you and all of you who are in this room for 

all the wonderful work you are doing. One of the things that I am 

concerned about is the quality of commodities that are made available. Now, I have talked to a lot of people about this, and I need 

to know from you have they gotten better over the years, the commodities that are provided? We have not really talked about that 

here, but is that an area that we should be looking at in the farm 

bill this year? Any thoughts that you might have on the quality 

and the type of commodities that we provide for the School Lunch 

and Breakfast Programs. 

Ms. THORNTON. I think the nutritional quality of commodities 

has improved dramatically over the last number of years. We are 

seeing beef products, for instance, with a lower fat content. We are 

seeing a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables. We are seeing canned 

fruits with water pack or a natural juice pack as opposed to a 

sugar-based pack. There are a lot more frozen options. And then 

the whole option of being able to divert products so that we can 

have those manufactured ourselves into an end product that is a 

nutritionally sound product has also been a great improvement. 

Chairman HARKIN. I would welcome any input from your association about any thoughts you might have on how we address this, 

or if we should, in the farm bill this year in terms of modifications 

or anything that we should be thinking about. I would welcome 

that. But it has been sort of my information that they have gotten 

better. 

Ms. THORNTON. Absolutely. 

Chairman HARKIN. And I just wanted to ask you that, if that was 

your feeling also. 

Teresa, about the Fruit and Vegetable Program, it has been my 

understanding that not one school that has ever participated ever 

asked to be dropped from the program, and that you just keep getting more and more requests for schools to participate in this. And 

it has been my understanding also that now companies like, I 

think, Sunkist, Dole—I do not mean to single out any companies, 

but some like that are now packaging fruits and vegetables just for 

this program. Is that right? 

Ms. NECE. That is correct. Actually, I have not ever heard of a 

school that has requested to not participate. I have heard of schools 

that want to participate. You know, in Des Moines, I would say 

that I probably have 90 percent of the schools that are interested 

in participation because of the significant positive events that have 

occurred in the school environment, and that it has encouraged 

that healthy environment for not only learning but also for nutrition behavior. 

In terms of product availability, we have seen a great change in 

prepackaged food items including pineapple. One of the most popular student ones was a pineapple push-up. 

Chairman HARKIN. I have seen that, yes. 

Ms. NECE. Which is just marvelous. But it makes also for easy 

classroom distribution so that you have little mess, and you do not 

have a great amount of waste from the food product itself. 

Chairman HARKIN. I have told this story before. It was a thirdgrade kid that taught me how to eat kiwi fruit. 

17

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. I thought, kiwi fruit, boy, they are hard to 

peel, a mess. So I went to this one classroom 1 day, and they were 

having the fruits and vegetables. These kids were having kiwi 

fruit. And I thought, ‘‘Boy, this is a mess. How is this going to 

work?’’ This third-grade kid showed me. He took a spoon, got a little plate, took the spoon and jabbed it right in the middle, broke 

it open, scooped it out and ate it. Why didn’t I ever think of that? 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. I will never forget that. 

This Fruit and Vegetable Program, it was a theory that we tested. We wanted to test it to see if it would work. We had all kinds 

of information that maybe there would be a mess and there would 

be peels on the floor and all that kind of stuff. We found that that 

really did not occur. We had one—this was in Michigan, as a matter of fact, Senator Stabenow. 

Senator STABENOW. We have a lot of programs in Michigan. 

Chairman HARKIN. I know. You have got a lot of them there. And 

we had one information—this is a couple years ago—where the bus 

driver—they had put some fruits on the bus going out to pick up 

kids. And the bus driver got really upset because kids were putting 

banana peels and apple cores on the floor and stuff like that, and 

he got very upset about it until the principal of the school decided 

to take affirmative action. He went to the local Safeway story—I 

do not know if it was Safeway or whatever store it was—and got 

these little plastic bags, and he just put them on the back of seats 

of the bus, and the kids would put them in there afterward, and 

the problem was solved. So it is just ingenious things like that. 

But I just think that this program has taken off. I will state publicly here right now that because this has proven to be successful, 

that kids do eat these fruits and vegetables, they are getting 

healthy, the teachers like it, the principals like it, the school boards 

like it. I have not seen anyone that has been opposed to it. It is 

my goal and I will do whatever I can to ensure that every elementary school kid in America in 10 years gets free fresh fruits and 

vegetables in school. I think that is a goal we ought to shoot for, 

and we will do everything we can to get to that point. 

Senator STABENOW. Mr. Chairman, could I just insert one thing? 

Could we ask that they be grown in Michigan? 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. I do not know about that. It is a national program here. 

Ms. Neely, my time is running out. I just wanted to ask you—

well, my time is out; I will do it on my second round—about the 

idea about snack food companies. The beverages seem to be doing 

OK, but the problem is with the snack foods that is a problem in 

our vending machines in schools. I want to ask you about that, but 

I will do that during my second round because my time has run 

out. 

With that, I will turn to Senator Chambliss. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and, 

Debbie, you all just don’t grow peaches in Michigan. That is the 

problem. 

[Laughter.] 

18

Senator CHAMBLISS. To serve to all these kids all over America. 

Ms. Nece, I am a big fan of that program, too. We were to be included, Georgia was to be included in the pilot program in the ag 

appropriation bill of last year, which, unfortunately, with the continuing resolution, got dropped out. But I share that with you, Mr. 

Chairman, and as we move into the farm bill, that is certainly an 

issue that we need to address, and I hope we are able to accomplish that. 

I would just like to ask you, as a practical matter, is it a problem 

to our local systems to any degree to purchase local fruits and 

vegetables? Or is it something they kind of look forward to? 

Ms. NECE. I think it is a great opportunity to involve local suppliers if the suppliers exist in the community, and I think that is 

a reasonable responsibility for a school district to look at options 

and ways of incorporating local. 

One of the challenges initially from my perspective in the startup 

was figuring out how to manage all the fruits and vegetables that 

were going to go to our classrooms, and then how were we going 

to distribute those out to each and every classroom in a school 

building and get it done in a timely manner to not interfere with 

the operation of the school day. 

And so that took some creativity, but I think that the options to 

look at local purchases using local suppliers of products that are 

not only local but what are coming from national manufacturers is 

a great opportunity. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Great. Ms. Thornton, Congress required 

schools to develop local wellness policies in the Child Nutrition and 

WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, and the policies were required to 

go into effect at the beginning of this past school year. Knowing the 

nutritional expertise that can be provided by the School Nutrition 

Association, how active was your organization in helping schools 

develop their local plans? And how active will your organization be 

in helping to revise those plans as needed? 

Ms. THORNTON. Our organization did offer training for wellness 

programs throughout the country as well as training at a number 

of our national meetings. But obviously only those folks that chose 

to attend those meetings had that training. I think it varied dramatically across the country as to how involved child nutrition 

folks were in the development of the plans. It was left up to the 

districts, obviously. But I think you could tell a difference in plans 

where someone in school nutrition was involved and then those 

where they were not. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Ms. Hennrich, as I hear from you relative to 

national mandates relative to nutritional aspects in our School 

Lunch Programs, I am one of those folks who happens to have a 

lot of confidence in our local folks. I visit schools on a regular basis. 

I have a fifth grader and a third grader as grandchildren. I have 

a daughter who is a teacher. When I go into the schools, I try to 

make it a point to eat lunch and visit with the kids, and I am always impressed by what I see. And I try to do it so they do not 

always know the Senator is coming to eat lunch so we are going 

to have what he likes that particular day. 

But I am saying this because you seemed to indicate with your 

recommendation that there is a problem out there. Local control 

19

means to me—we set broad parameters with which our dietitians 

are required to make certain selections of nutritional food, and 

whether it is the State or whether it is the local folks at the end 

of the day who adopt those dietary guidelines, it is the local folks 

who make the decision about what is going to be served in the 

lunchroom on those particular days. 

I just do not see the problem there. Now, if there is, if there are 

schools that are not serving the right kinds of meals, obviously we 

want to know about that. So I throw that out to you because that 

is what I got from your conversation in your statement there. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Senator Chambliss, let me kind of go back and 

say more specifically it is not with the school meals program. We 

believe that Congress has done an admirable job and the locals 

have done an admirable job actually making the broad policy play 

in local districts. It is the fact that you do not have any reach over 

what is sold in hallways, in school stores. There are no Federal 

guidelines. That is the point to us, that those competitive foods are 

the things that we are concerned and why we believe that you 

should broaden your definition of not just in the cafeteria or where 

the school meals are being sold but throughout the whole school, 

because that is where kids are eating now. And there are no guidelines, no standards. Anything can be sold. There is the voluntary 

guidelines that are coming in from the ABA, but they do not have 

to play. And that is what we are concerned about. It is really up 

to individual local schools. And that is where I think they have 

been pushed in the corner in terms of funding, believing they have 

got to sell ‘‘bad foods,’’ foods that do not have much nutritional 

value, to kids in order to keep the band playing. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Well, I understood that part of it, but I obviously misunderstood and thought you were talking, too, about our 

lunchrooms. 

Ms. HENNRICH. No. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Good. Because I am very proud of my folks. 

Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up. Unfortunately, as I indicated to you, we have got a hearing over in Armed Services relative 

to our issue out at Walter Reed, and I am going to have to go over 

there. But I did want to get into one other issue, but I am not 

going to have time to. But in Ms. Hennrich’s testimony, you do 

refer to this situation involved Coca-Cola and the Portland Public 

School System, and your testimony seems to characterize a contract 

renegotiation is going to cost the public school system about a 

$6,000 penalty, that that is what Coca-Cola is seeking to extract. 

And in looking at the Portland Public School System’s website, they 

have a press release on there dated February 7 that says exactly 

what is going on out there. And, Mr. Chairman, I would just like 

to insert a copy of that press release in the record. 

Chairman HARKIN. Without objection. 

Chairman HARKIN. OK. Thank you, Saxby. 

Senator Lugar? 

Senator LUGAR. Mr. Chairman, I want to pick up on questioning 

Mrs. Hennrich. You pointed out that testimony from those who reported to you indicated that 75 percent of eating occurs in hallways 

and classrooms. Is that a general characteristic or a specific school? 

Or where did the 75 percent come from? 

20

Ms. HENNRICH. Senator, I think that was I was alluding to my 

daughter, who is a teacher, just saying, ‘‘Mother, it is not happening in cafeterias anymore. It is happening all over the school.’’ 

So that is not a scientific number. That was simply her estimate 

in her school that kids are eating from vending machines, school 

stores, things people bring from home and their lockers. You name 

it. She just said it is unregulated out there. 

Senator LUGAR. There seems to be anecdotal evidence that that 

is true. If not 75 percent, I am just curious whether any of you 

have any research on how much occurs in the lunchroom, as Senator Chambliss was talking about admirable standards, and how 

much outside where there are no standards. This would seem to me 

to be a very important point, and maybe in due course we will get 

some research, if we do not have it. 

In any event, we have come to a conclusion that something is occurring outside the lunchroom and, in fact, in fairly large volume, 

and there has been a great deal of interest, and admirable, Ms. 

Neely’s testimony, the voluntary efforts that are involved. But let 

me just say that essentially Mr. Brownell’s testimony leads me to 

believe that we are back into an issue that is not unlike that which 

we faced with regard to the whole School Lunch Program, say in 

about 1994, 1995, and 1996. The argument then was that certainly 

it was admirable to have these programs, but we have a Federal 

system, which means that we have States and we have local governments. And as a matter of fact, they look after children, too, are 

very humane, but there is no particular reason for a Federal lunch 

program. That was the issue, and it was fought vividly, and a pretty close decision. 

Now, people who were not there in that period of time 10, 12 

years ago cannot fathom that we were arguing whether we should 

have a National School Lunch Program. But that was the issue, 

and it could have been terminated at that point. 

Now, at this point, I am convinced that we really have to have 

national standards for what is occurring in the hallway. I think it 

is incontrovertible with regard to the obesity problem for our children. However, I ask you, Mr. Brownell, you say, Who should develop the standards? This is a critical issue. You said, ‘‘It is likely 

that calls have been made for USDA to establish the definitions of 

Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value.’’ You state, ‘‘This could be a 

barrier to progress, given the dual and oft-conflicting priorities of 

the agency to help promote food sales but at the same time establishing national nutrition policy.’’

Therefore, you suggest that, ‘‘Having the criteria established by 

the Institute of Medicine or the Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention could help alleviate the dual role experienced by the 

USDA and avoid to some extent the problems created by the ‘revolving door’ between the USDA and the food industry.’’

Now, without indicting USDA, I would just observe that we do 

have a political system in this country that is to the good. People 

come and go. Sometimes those who come into office have very different values that are not necessarily those of scientists, nutritionists, doctors, and so forth, taking a look at food. And, therefore, I 

am at least persuaded that the Committee ought to look very careVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:32 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35041.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
21

fully at who sets the standards and, furthermore, that we probably 

should move to set some standards. 

Ultimately, the question will be raised—and several of you have 

suggested all the arguments against it, and this is a critical one 

often that comes up in local meetings, and that is, we need the revenue. Here is the principal, the superintendent, somebody. Just 

very frankly, we are not getting enough support from the State of 

Indiana or the State of Ohio or what have you, quite apart from 

the Federal Government. It is a question of kids’ education. Which 

comes first? And this is a critical—now, so people say, well, perhaps that could be substituted, maybe if people began to eat nutritious foods and drinks and so forth, the revenue—maybe. But it appears to me that this is a factor for some research also. Who is eating outside the cafeteria, to begin with, and how much—and how 

the revenue situation is going to be there. Because, absent that, we 

are going to have a very tough problem in which we are talking 

about denying education to children while we are busy trying to fix 

the fact that they will not have diabetes. And we do not want to 

get involved in that kind of a critical choice if, in fact, the facts or 

the programs can avoid that. 

So I ask any of you for comment. My time is already expired, but, 

nevertheless, yes, sir? 

Mr. BROWNELL. It is a very realistic concern because the general 

lore is that schools are making a great deal of money from the 

sales of these products, and it is supporting the soccer team or the 

band or students to come to Washington on trips or things like 

that. And so there was a perfect need for some research on the 

topic, which has now been done, and the studies on this show either the revenue stays the same or increases as the foods become 

healthier because children will buy the healthier options. 

Senator LUGAR. Thank you. 

Ms. THORNTON. The School Nutrition Association also, if I may, 

totally agrees with your comment, but we also have some real concern as to what is happening within the cafeteria and the diversity 

that is there. We are all over the board with regard to nutrition 

standards, some being really high with maybe sodium, low on fat, 

standards are all over the place. And I think this chart that I gave 

you would just give you some indication of what we are seeing and 

how it is impossible to meet standards across the country by manufacturers and even to find product in many instances. 

Senator LUGAR. We need some standards in the kitchen in addition. 

Ms. THORNTON. Absolutely. 

Senator LUGAR. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. I might just add, Senator Lugar, that a couple of years ago, in anticipation of trying to figure out who was 

going to decide what these standards are, in our appropriations bill 

we requested the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy 

of Sciences to study this and to come out with some recommendations. And I am told that they are going to do that sometime this 

spring. It has been about 2 years in the development. 

Senator LUGAR. Good. 

Chairman HARKIN. So we will have at least some documentation 

on this, hopefully soon, I hope. 

22

Senator LUGAR. That is great. 

Chairman HARKIN. From the Institute of Medicine. Is that right? 

It is going to come out this spring sometime? So hopefully we will 

have at least that to go on. Thank you, Senator Lugar. 

Senator Casey? 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

the panel for your testimony and for your great advocacy. 

I have a couple of specific questions, one with regard to the Fruit 

and Vegetable Snack Program. We know that there are a lot of 

States out there—a lot of schools, I should say, in those States that 

have a real interest in participating. In Pennsylvania, we had last 

year, I am told, some 1,000 schools applying, but, of course, it is 

limited by the program to, I guess, 25. 

I would ask you your opinion on that and how we go about expanding that so that more and more schools in a lot of our States 

can participate. And I know that is directed at all of you, but whoever wants to take that one. 

Ms. NECE. Very well. I will take the first shot at it. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you. 

Ms. NECE. I think there are some collective, collaborative ways 

where we need to look at how we expand the options. And you are 

correct, currently in any of the States participating, there are primarily 25 schools to the State. And that is true in Iowa, and it is 

open for application each year, and those applications then are reviewed under a set of criteria for implementation. 

I think there is a nutrition education component that is extremely important in the Fruit and Vegetable Program. One of the 

ways in my district that we gets fruits and vegetables available in 

our elementary schools is through a grant. It is referred to as ‘‘Basics,’’ and it is a nutrition education curriculum that goes into the 

classroom, and as a part of that, we provide fruits and vegetables 

as a part of a snack. And that has been a very successful way for 

us to incorporate fruits and vegetables in the schools that are not 

grant schools. 

Ms. THORNTON. I think another way you may do it is through the 

commodity program. We are asking for more commodities for 

breakfast. Fresh fruits and vegetables would be great for breakfast. 

So if we could tie those two together, then we would have both 

issues solved, perhaps. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you. And a related question on coordination. In Pennsylvania, as I mentioned before, we have got about a 

million children, just over a million children, in School Lunch, but 

just about a quarter of a million or so in School Breakfast, and that 

lack of coordination is obviously a problem for Pennsylvania. I 

guess it is a two-part question that could go to anyone, Ms. Thornton, Ms. Nece, Ms. Hennrich. 

I guess the two-part question, one is: How can Pennsylvania 

move forward to better coordinate that based upon your experience? But, also, have you seen this lack of coordination or disconnect between School Lunch and School Breakfast in your own 

communities or in other States? 

Ms. THORNTON. I think we see that obviously nationwide, just 

from the numbers we have. But very often we get back to the 

money issue. If a parent has to pay for one meal of the day, they 

23

typically pay for lunch because that is in the middle of the day. 

When they do not have money, then that breakfast is often left off 

there. That is why we are really anxious to see money appropriated 

for this pilot, because those reduced-price kids are often the ones 

that do not have food available at home either. So if we can see 

if money is truly that issue, I think this would give us one more 

step forward to being able to do something about that. 

Senator CASEY. Ms. Hennrich? 

Ms. HENNRICH. I know that in Oregon the numbers are about the 

same, the percentages. Of course, Oregon has much smaller numbers than Pennsylvania. But I think that what I have heard, breakfast in the classroom, and really getting schools that offer breakfast 

for all kids and that has to do—and I am not an expert because 

I am not a school nutrition director. But hearing from them, I know 

there are programmatic issues and issues around funding that 

make it difficult to—only if you have a certain percentage of free 

and reduced children then can you really offer it freely in every 

classroom every day. And so I think that they are constantly balancing, wanting to do the right thing and providing the nutrition 

both at breakfast and lunch, with the limited resources. So I think 

it is a balance of getting the will and the direction and the help 

to really have good programs and know how to do them, along with 

adequate funding so they can really make it happen. 

Senator CASEY. And, Ms. Hennrich, I wanted to point to your testimony, just startling numbers here. On page 2, two sets of numbers which are disturbing to say the least: Rates of obesity among 

U.S. children and teens tripled between 1980 and 2002. That is fact 

No. 1. And the second one, for individuals born in 2000, the chance 

of developing diabetes during their lifetime is 39 percent for females, 33 percent for males. Just startling. And with those statistics that everyone here has heard over and over again, but they 

bear repeating—and you also have the question of the voluntary 

nature of these new guidelines. What do those who are at the witness table recommend in terms of making the connection between 

what the Beverage Association membership is trying to do—and we 

appreciate that—and the failure by more schools or school districts 

to take this challenge more seriously because of the voluntary nature of where we are with the guidelines? Anyone want to chime 

in there? 

Ms. HENNRICH. Well, I will jump in first. One of the problems is 

that I think schools kind of inadvertently, before they realized we 

had the child obesity epidemic happening and the diabetes epidemic, they were struggling for funds and so, you know, kind of 

walked into, geez, let’s just have this vending machine and make 

a little money and put it down here. And the next thing you know, 

let’s have a few more vending machines. And my son is 27 and 

went to a Portland public school high school, and I said to him 

about a year back when I was really into this, I said, ‘‘Brent, did 

you have machines at Benson High School?’’ And he goes, ‘‘Of 

course we did, Mother.’’ And I said, ‘‘Well, I walked in and out of 

there a lot as a parent volunteer doing’’—‘‘I never noticed them.’’ 

I think they have become such a part of the landscape everywhere 

we go. Hospital emergency rooms. I mean, all kinds of places that 

I believe should be role models about health have vending maVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:32 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35041.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
24

chines everywhere selling products that I do not think any of us 

think are the best for our kids. And yet they happened. They one 

by one kind of snuck in. And then what—the Portland district I 

think is a good example. They found they had—all the different 

high schools had contracts with different—with Pepsi or with Coke. 

And all of a sudden—and different agreements and different things 

happening. 

So they said, my goodness, we have got to get this together, and 

they came up with one contract. And it is an 8–year contract. It 

started in 2001 and goes to 2009. And we found in our soda contract study that we have some districts in Oregon that signed 15–

year contracts. And there is one school district that kind of knowing that all this turmoil and the local—the voluntary standards 

were coming in, quickly went and signed a contract that starts in 

2008 and goes to 2015. 

So some of them are stuck with the contracts they did in 2001 

and 2002. Others seem to be rushing to kind of get themselves into 

a contract that will go out into the future. And it is complicated 

with the voluntary guidelines. Although the MOU from the alliance 

says that they, you know, will not stand in the way of local districts changing product mix, et cetera, we are not finding that to 

be true in every case. And I think Portland is an example where 

they did go further than the voluntary guidelines. They took out 

diet sodas and they took out sports drinks. So they went further 

than the guidelines, but they have been told—we were told at a 

meeting of the local wellness task force by the director of nutrition 

services that although this had all been negotiated and agreed 

upon last fall, that all of a sudden this spring we are told by CocaCola that things were changing, and either those products needed 

to come back in or potentially face a $600,000 fine. 

Now the district is in, quote, good-faith negotiations at the moment, and we do not get any information on what exactly is happening. So it is complicated, I think, by the fact that you have got 

voluntary guidelines now that have come in, but you have these 

contracts, and the local districts, they are all very different. And 

it is going to take a while to unwind all of it, I think. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you. I am over time. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you. 

Senator Salazar? 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Harkin. 

Let me just at the outset say that I fully support you and endorse you in the great role of getting every one of our children in 

elementary school to be a part of the Fruit and Vegetable Program 

within 10 years. I think it is a laudable goal, and I think it is 

something that hopefully we can develop the kind of inertia around 

here to make happen. 

Let me ask a question to you, Ms. Neely. It seems to me that on 

either side of you, you have proponents of the Federal mandate in 

terms of how we deal with our children and the cafeterias, out in 

the hallways, and so forth. And my question to you is: You as Beverage Association have come up with a set of voluntary guidelines, 

and what I would like to know from you is how you believe that 

those voluntary guidelines ultimately will be effective. And from 

you, Mr. Brownell, from an academic point of view, how can we 

25

measure the effectiveness of these programs? I see the mandates 

that we have put forward, for example, with respect to teenage/underage drinking, and yet we know the statistics on college campuses and drinking between 16 and 21, which shows that those 

mandates have not worked. And I would venture that all of my colleagues here and all of you would agree on the goal that we want 

to have healthier children and we want them to be eating healthier 

foods. 

So my question to you is whether you believe that the voluntary 

guidelines that the Beverage Association has come up with will get 

us there. And, No. 2, how do we deal with the reality of the fact 

that the schools cannot do everything? It is the parents that are 

buying things and bringing them—allowing their children to take 

them to school or whatever. How do you deal with that reality? The 

schools control, you know, a significant aspect of what happens in 

terms of a child’s diet, but the rest of the world that we deal with. 

And so at the end of the day, whatever we end up doing in terms 

of mandates or supporting voluntary compliance, how do we ensure 

effectiveness at the end of the day? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, that is a very large, important question, and 

I will try to answer a bit of it from the beverage industry perspective. 

First, I will start with the latter part of your question, schools 

versus what happens at home and elsewhere in a child’s life. I 

think we do agree with Dr. Brownell that schools are the optimal 

environment to teach healthy behaviors, which is why the beverage 

industry wanted to enter this agreement with the Alliance for a 

Healthier Generation. It is a special place, and it is where we can 

teach children the best habits. So schools are important to learn 

lifelong habits, and that is why we are all concentrated on them. 

I would also say that beverages are, as is being discussed here, 

only one component of the obesity challenge, and so we are trying 

to tackle our piece of it, what is sold in the vending machines, and 

our agreement with the alliance actually applies to all of the beverages sold. We have the most impact as an industry on the vending machines because that is where the majority of our contractual 

relationships are, but there also are obviously beverages sold in the 

cafeteria and the a la carte lines and the school stores. And it 

would certainly be our intent that this policy applies across the 

school. Again, it is a national policy. 

I will say that one of the things we so strongly support in the 

approach the alliance is taking is that it is a comprehensive look 

at the entire school environment, so it is not just the nutrition component, but it is also the fitness component, which Senator Harkin 

has sponsored a useful piece of legislation. 

Senator SALAZAR. Ms. Neely, do your guidelines go beyond the 

schools? And would there be a problem in terms of your guidelines 

going beyond the schools so that parents and anybody else that 

interfaces with a child’s life actually would know what guidelines 

there are that might work in terms of the diet for their children 

from nonalcoholic beverages? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, we think the schools are special places to have 

a more limited environment where kids could really learn healthy 

behaviors, and then as they are with their parent, I think those of 

26

us who are parents want to have some say over what they do as 

well. 

Senator SALAZAR. I have about a minute. I am very interested in 

this question of effectiveness, because it does not do anything for 

us to pass the greatest law in the world but——

Ms. NEELY. Our commitment is that these guidelines will be implemented by the start of the school year in 2009, so we are almost 

a year into it, and we have two 2 more years to go. So——

Senator SALAZAR. I will be very interested in knowing how we 

are going to measure the effectiveness of the program. So let me, 

Mr. Brownell——

Ms. NEELY. We will bring you a copy of our first report in August, this August. 

Senator SALAZAR. I look forward to getting that report. 

Mr. Brownell, I have about a minute on my time, so if you can 

be quick. 

Mr. BROWNELL. I will be very quick. I believe the objective assessment of the effectiveness of this program would be in order, 

and somebody other than the industry should probably do that 

evaluation, but it definitely needs to be done. 

If I were betting on this myself, I would bet that this will take 

a long time to roll out. There will be spotty compliance, and that 

it will be incomplete in terms of changing the children’s nutrition 

environment because it leaves in some sugared beverages, namely, 

sports drinks, and it amply allows opportunities for the company 

to do branding to the children in the schools. And I believe the 

schools should not be an opportunity for the soft drink industry to 

develop brand loyalty. 

The other thing I might say is that we should know that it is not 

the food industry that is putting the quarters and the dollars into 

those machines and helping pay for the education. It is the children 

and the parents of the community. So it is a myth that the industry is somehow helping education in this process. It is more or less 

a tax being applied to the parents and children of the community 

to help support the education. 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Brownell. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Salazar. 

Senator Coleman? 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The New York Times about a year ago did a series of articles on 

obesity and the epidemic and the impact of diabetes, and it is truly 

devastating and worth taking a look at. 

The Chairman talked about the food industry in addition to the 

beverage industry. I represent a State that has General Mills, has 

been very, very active in their foundation and partnership, American Dietetic Association Foundation, the President’s Council on 

Physical Fitness, they have Champion for Healthy Kids grant program, very, very active. I was a former mayor and worked hand in 

hand with the business community. I did not see them as the 

enemy. The Beverage Council, you know, coming forward with 

their programs. 

And perhaps you, Ms. Thornton, or others, how do you involve 

the private sector in this? As others said, Government cannot do 

27

this all by ourselves. Assuming—and, you know, I can look to General Mills or I can look to the beverage folks as folks who are willing partners. We may in the end not agree with everything that is 

being offered, but how do you engage the private sector in this? Do 

you see a role for them in what we are talking about here? 

Ms. THORNTON. Absolutely. I think industry, at the local level, 

our community members, community organizations, even our 

churches, civic organizations—we all have got to work together. We 

all have a responsibility. In our district, we have even involved 

some factory leaders because we think they have a very vested interest in wellness of students in our community. 

So I think we need to stop perhaps pointing fingers and all start 

taking a role and recognizing that we have all got to work together 

to change what we are seeing happening right now. And I think we 

all want the same end results, and that is, what is best for children. It is just we may not all have exactly the same philosophy 

as to how we need to get there. 

Senator COLEMAN. Mr. Brownell, you seem somewhat critical of 

at least involving the industry in the evaluation of the research. 

What role do you see for the private sector in this issue of improving nutrition, fitness behavior, et cetera? 

Mr. BROWNELL. Did you address that to me? 

Senator COLEMAN. Mr. Brownell or Ms. Hennrich, either or both 

of you. 

Ms. HENNRICH. You start. 

Mr. BROWNELL. OK. I believe the industry has done some interesting and progressive things. If we look at industry behavior in 

general, we could look back at the tobacco industry, for example, 

that deceived the public time after time after time, and what 

seemed like victories at the moment turned out not to be. Now, the 

food industry is not the tobacco industry, and food is not tobacco 

as a substance. However, there are some interesting lessons to be 

learned from that. 

So I believe industry has a voice. The industry players who are 

making good-faith efforts to move ahead on this should be applauded for doing so. Nor do I think we can just take at face value 

industry claims that they are holding the children’s interest of the 

public at their heart. 

So who sets the guidelines becomes important, and I think industry should not set the guidelines for the nutrition education of our 

children. I think that should be done by a Government agency free 

of industry influence, and then industry can help accomplish the 

goals. 

Ms. THORNTON. One of the things I would like to add, we have 

an Industry Advisory Council as a part of our organization. You 

should have before you a group of letters just collected here saying 

from industry that they think national standards are certainly the 

way to go in schools. So this is certainly putting it out of industry 

into your hands to say we do need something. It would make it so 

much clearer for everyone. 

Senator COLEMAN. And a question about the data. Mr. Brownell, 

in your data you have indicated that 83 percent of parents favor 

soft drink and snack food bans in public schools. Ms. Neely, you 

have got a figure that says by a margin of 82 percent to 14 percent 

28

parents favor guidelines over bans. Could somebody sort that out? 

Ms. Neely? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, I appreciate you asking that question, Senator. 

I think the distinction is that when we surveyed parents, we heard 

that they agreed with us that calories should come out of the 

schools. So that is why our policy, which was put together not by 

industry but with nutrition scientists at the American Heart Association, that is why our policy is framed around getting calories out 

of the equation. And even the products that are higher in nutrition, 

like 100 percent juice, are portion controlled so that the calories remain limited. 

So, again, our policy was developed with healthy input from a 

significant health organization, and we think it is appropriate, and 

supported by parents as common-sensical. 

Senator COLEMAN. I have to ask you a question, Mr. Brownell. 

If parents looking at the guidelines—and I take it your objection 

to the guidelines is that includes things like sport drinks, low-calorie——

Mr. BROWNELL. And opportunities for——

Senator COLEMAN. Pardon me? 

Mr. BROWNELL. And opportunities for branding. 

Senator COLEMAN. But if parents wanted to give their kids those 

choices—and parents, when you say it is a tax, kids are spending 

money, parents are—and with these contracts, they are making 

choices. And if parents want to make choices about things like 

sport drinks, again, understanding that there are guidelines that 

are worked out in accordance with recognized—do you think parents should have that right? 

Mr. BROWNELL. Oh, of course. I do not know that anybody has 

proposed any rule that would interfere with parents’ rights to do 

things. And, in fact, even the most severe ban ideas would not restrict children from bringing the beverages into schools if they 

wanted to do or if the parents wanted to do it. It really would be 

local choice and up to the parents. But the question is: Should the 

schools be selling snack foods and beverages to children that ultimately could be hurting their health? 

Senator COLEMAN. And if parents and the local school board 

wanted to make that choice, do they—I guess that is the question 

then. Do we come in and say there is a Federal standard and we 

are saying no? Or even if there is some balance there, even if there 

are these other options out there, but what we are saying is if 

there is this particular option, to have something with caloric content, to have a sport drink, if you are going to do that, one point 

of view would say no, we are not going to allow that. Ms. Neely, 

your response to that? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, the question is should parents have some input 

or—I am not sure I understood the question exactly. 

Senator COLEMAN. I mean, the question—there is a perspective 

that we are trying to sort out here. Should there be a Federal 

standard that says no, in fact, no sport drinks, no—and that any 

caloric content, et cetera, if schools want to do that, and if parents 

and a local school board come up with a policy and a contract that 

says this is what we want, to offer these choices to our kids, understanding, you know, where the bulk of things, but we are going to 

29

offer choice for a sport drink, should—do parents have—do we respect the wish of the parents there or, in fact, should we simply 

come in and say that is a bad choice and we are not going to allow 

the school to do it? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, I think as we all agree, schools are special 

places where educators, nutrition experts, policymakers want to 

work with parents to determine what the best approach is. Why we 

think, in working with the American Heart Association, we have 

hit the right balance is that we have focused on calories. So sports 

drinks are available for active kids who are engaged in sports, but 

they are capped at a certain size so that the calories are commensurate with what is determined appropriate. 

The view of the American Heart Association, when we developed 

the policy, is, well, kids should have water, they should have juice, 

they should have things that are high in nutrition or functional. 

But they also are going to want something that is enjoyable. So 

why not push diet soft drinks as an option only for high school 

kids, so if you are going to have a treat, you learn how in school 

to take the no-calorie or low-calorie option. 

So we think we have hit the balance because we are out there 

listening to parents, we are listening to schools, and we consulted 

with nutrition scientists in order to create that balance. 

One of the things our survey showed is that parents reject the 

notion of a wholesale ban. They think that is too much, that it just 

goes too far. And so, again, the mix in the machines or in the a 

la carte line or in the school store should be framed around calories 

and nutrition, not concern about specific products. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you. 

I might just add for the record that I have a letter here dated 

March the 1st from the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association endorsing the legislation that Senator Murkowski and I are introducing today. I just want to read just one 

letter from this. It said that, ‘‘The foods and drink sold in our 

schools must meet standards informed by the latest science.’’ What 

we talked about earlier, Senator Lugar. ‘‘However, the current Federal nutritional standards for foods sold outside of school meals or 

foods of minimal nutritional value is now 30 years out of date. It 

is clear that a review by the Secretary of Agriculture of this definition is overdue.’’

So I know the American Heart Association was involved in that 

process with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, but they are 

also saying that we need to enact national standards. 

I have a chart here. I will just take a little bit of time. I just 

wanted to show it. I think this might be an appropriate point in 

the proceedings. Why this is so important—no, I will just hold it 

up here. I do not need that. You can hold it up. Why it is so important to get the standards—or get the definitions updated, according 

to USDA right now, here is what is allowed: fruitades, french fries, 

ice cream bars, candy bars, cookies, chips, snack cakes, and doughnuts. Not allowed, seltzer water. No calories. Seltzer water is not 

allowed. Caramel corn, popsicles, jelly beans, chewing gum, lollipops, cotton candy, and breath mints. 

30

This is really confusing. This is just—that is why we need to update the standards, 30 years out of date. You can have a Twinkie, 

but you cannot have seltzer water. Now, that just does not make 

sense. That is just one aspect of the legislation, that is, to get them 

to update these standards so we get them—kind of clear it out a 

little bit and bring it up to date. 

I am sorry to have taken that time to do that. I wanted to get 

that in now. 

We will go to Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you, Chairman Harkin. Thank you 

for the work that you are doing. And like Senator Coleman, I am 

from Minnesota. I grew up on General Mills cereal. That is how I 

got a number of my vitamins in the morning. But I now have seen 

my daughter—she was at a very poor school for a number of years 

that was 80 percent free and reduced lunch. And it is one thing to 

have cereal, and it is another thing to see these kids eating snack 

food all day and drinking sugar pop. And I have a very personal 

reaction to this just because I have seen these poor kids that have 

gained a lot of weight and that really, I do not think, have much 

of a choice. And as you pointed out, some of it is how they have 

grown up and the food that they are getting from their parents. 

But I do not believe that we can continue going the way that we 

are and expect things to change. Obviously, some of this is having 

fruits and vegetables available, but some of it is also looking at 

having some kind of national standards. 

I guess my first question is about this—I have talked to some 

school officials in Minnesota, and they are attempting to 

proactivley look at the new nutrition guidelines by incorporating 

more fresh fruits and vegetables. But they have found themselves 

in something of a Catch–22 because it is expensive to do that, and 

so then they get into these contracts, as you pointed out, so that 

they bring more money in, and the kids are drinking pop and eating Fritos. 

And so my question is to Ms. Nece: Do you feel that greater support from the Federal Government would allow schools to pay for 

more nutritious foods and still have the flexibility to base their 

snack food sales on nutritional standards rather than financial concerns? 

Ms. NECE. Yes, I think that would be of some great assistance 

to school districts across the Nation. One of the proposals from the 

School Nutrition Association is to increase the commodity support 

or to actually create commodity support for the School Breakfast 

Program. The School Breakfast Program is one of the programs 

that used far less than the National School Lunch Program. And 

one of the things that I have seen in my district is an increase in 

breakfast participation, and part of that is because of the offering 

of fresh fruits and vegetables. Even in our Fresh Fruit and Vegetable pilot schools, we have watched the numbers continue to grow. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

There was a recent ‘‘Cathy’’ cartoon that I showed to Chairman 

Harkin, and it was in the Sunday paper, and it talked about how 

the health-conscious consumer thinks more about fresh fruits and 

vegetables, knows more about fresh fruits and vegetables, plants 

more, buys more, but that the only thing that they do not do is acVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:32 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35041.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
31

tually eat them. And so my concern is that if we have a strictly 

voluntary approach to nutrition in schools, we can educate kids 

about how good they are. But when you put a kid in a situation—

and, again, I have seen it, especially in a school where there is 

more poverty—where they are surrounded by high-sugar, high-fat, 

and professionally marketed junk food, many of them are going to 

choose that. 

So I guess my question of all of you is: Do you think it is reasonable to expect that education alone will guide children away from 

junk food and toward healthy food? Or should we be playing a more 

active role? 

Mr. BROWNELL. I can respond partly—go ahead. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Go ahead. 

Mr. BROWNELL. I was going to say that there is a long and rich 

history of research on the effects of nutrition education, and it 

tends not to work very well in the absence of structural environmental change that supports it. So I agree with you that something 

more than just education needs to be done. 

Ms. HENNRICH. And I totally second that. Nancy Becker is a dietician who works with us, teaches at Portland State University, 

and she kind of laughingly says, ‘‘I spend my life teaching nutrition 

education, but,’’ she said, ‘‘honestly, changing the environment, 

making the foods available that we want people to eat, that is what 

is going to make change.’’ Not saying that we should not be teaching kids, et cetera, but the fact is you can teach them up the yingyang, and if you do not make those fruits and vegetables available 

for them to eat, they are not going to eat them. 

Ms. THORNTON. I will also say that in my district I have had a 

number of parents call after we started serving a lot more fresh 

fruits and vegetables, and they were amazed that we were able to 

get the children to eat them. We are finding that because of the 

busy lifestyles of parents, we have so many more convenience 

foods, and the parents are becoming more aware that this is what 

they need to do. But because so many parents do not practice it at 

home, they do not truly understand the need for fresh fruits and 

vegetables, good nutrition at home. It is just easier to eat out of 

a box or out of a can or whatever. 

As we educate the kids and they are learning to eat properly, we 

are also indirectly educating those parents, and we are seeing a difference just from anecdotally what they are eating at home. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. But again, when you are around kids—I 

mean, I have been in different kinds of schools with my daughter 

where their parents are buying them grapes and that is what they 

are eating for a snack. You start having that kind of synergy in the 

school. 

Ms. THORNTON. Yes. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. But when it is a poor school, I just do not 

think you see that as much. And so I think that we have neglected 

to take care of these kids when they are in our car. 

Ms. NECE. And, Senator Klobuchar, I just would emphasize 

again, we do agree that the school environment should be more 

controlled. That is why we are taking full-calorie products out of 

the schools so that it will be low-calorie offerings, and we are actually creating packages and reformulating products to have smaller 

32

portion sizes of the things that are high in nutrition and have more 

calories. So we agree that it should be a more controlled environment in the schools and are trying to walk the talk, so to speak. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

Ms. NECE. The middle-school environment that we have the fruit 

and vegetable pilot that has been in existence for 5 years has no 

vending machines available for students, and they did not have a 

snack machine, never had one. But they did have a soda machine 

a number of years ago. The machines went away. And the students 

are active participants not only in the school meals program, but 

also in that access to that fresh fruit and vegetable and product, 

and we do see consumption change. It is a school that is about 80 

percent free and reduced. 

Chairman HARKIN. Which school is that? 

Ms. NECE. Hardin Middle School. 

Chairman HARKIN. Hardin Middle School. That is right. I have 

been there. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. You know, and, again, I as a parent just decided to make peanut butter sandwiches every day because they 

are more nutritious than what happens if you put them into this 

environment where they just cannot help but go to pick the pizza 

every day. Again, I think that we can do what we can with the environment, but at some point we are going to have to decide that 

this is what you are going to get to eat if we are going to change 

behavior. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator Lincoln? 

Senator LINCOLN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so 

much for your leadership holding this very important hearing to 

discuss an issue that is always on the minds of parents all across 

our great Nation, and that is the overall health and well-being of 

our children. 

Having for the third school day in a row forgotten to send in my 

check for school lunch——

[Laughter.] 

Senator LINCOLN. I left them out on the counter this morning for 

both of my children, but I discovered when I finally—and this is 

the benefit of having twins. When I asked one of my boys, I said, 

‘‘Now, why is it that you always run out of lunch money before 

your brother?’’ And he hemmed and hawed, and, you know, he said, 

‘‘Well, it is because we can buy a cookie.’’ And I said, ‘‘Yes, but we 

agreed we are only going to buy cookies on Friday.’’ And I said, 

‘‘Besides, how are you getting lunch?’’ ‘‘Well, I use my brother’s 

card.’’

Anyway, there are a lot of choices and issues that we deal with, 

with our children, and it is so important for the parental engagement in terms of teaching those issues and those choices. And I 

think that that is something so important for all of us to remind 

ourselves. 

And there are other ways, too, for our parents to engage themselves in the school and what they are doing and what our children 

are doing. I know we have had a discussion about how many cookies we can have and when we can have them. And I remembered 

the check, so we are moving along here. 

33

But I do think it is important to remind ourselves that our children are going to be faced with those choices when they leave the 

schools as well. So if we as parents do not engage ourselves in 

teaching those good habits—and as a school, there is no doubt—as 

Ms. Neely mentioned, this is a place to learn and reinforce good 

choices and good behavior. 

I want to applaud your industry for the work you have done and 

the voluntary efforts that you have made in trying to bring about 

those choices. With children that are also doing after-school activities, knowing that they are—other than the water fountain—the 

water fountain is good. We use those. But to know that there are 

those drinks that are there available to them after their sports activities to make sure that there is some thought being put into 

those drinks or into those beverages that they may be selecting. 

So it is a very healthy discussion that we are having and a very 

important one, coming from a State like Arkansas where we have 

seen tremendous childhood obesity and tremendous issues in diabetes as well, with our different populations, whether it is minority 

populations, low-income populations, and all of those issues that we 

are dealing with. 

So we want to do something that is constructive and certainly 

encouraging in terms of making sure that we are teaching good 

habits and making sure that parents are involved in that, too, because we know when they come home, that environment is perhaps 

going to be very different. 

I do want to put in a plug for the Breakfast Program. I think it 

is critically important, having had a sister that taught in the public 

schools, recognizing that children do come in with a tremendous 

amount of hunger and the need before they begin their school day 

to have that available to them. I think that is very, very important. 

Just a couple of quick questions. Ms. Neely, as you know, school 

districts are implementing local wellness policies as a requirement 

of the Child Nutrition Act. Any more that you might want to add 

to how school beverage guidelines mesh with those wellness policies? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, we think the guidelines mesh very well with 

the school wellness policies, and as our marketing sales teams are 

meeting with school leadership, they are presenting this as something that would make sense in the context of the overall policy. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, and in order for things to work, people 

have to participate. What is the willingness or the percentage of 

school districts that you see showing a willingness to implement 

your guidelines over the past year? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, we are 10 months into it, so we have not 

yet——

Senator LINCOLN. I know your study comes out in August, 

but——

Ms. NEELY. It does, and we have not completed the school year 

yet, and it is the first that would apply to the guidelines. But we 

are making progress. As I said, we fully expect the first report will 

show a significant decline in the sale of full-calorie soft drinks in 

schools, and it will also speak to the contracts that have been 

changed. 

34

So we think we are making progress. We are starting to assemble the data now, and as I said, we will personally deliver the report to all of you so that you can see we are doing what we said 

we would do. 

Senator LINCOLN. Good. We appreciate that. 

Dr. Brownell, there are some researchers from Ohio State University and Indiana University that released a study indicating 

that children are more likely to gain weight during the summer 

months as opposed to during the school year. I do not know. That 

goes counter to everything. I always keep thinking I will try to lose 

my weight during Lent, but, you know, summer is coming and I am 

going to—it is a better time to lose weight. But apparently that is 

not the case for children. They gain weight during the summer 

months as opposed to during the school year due to inactivity and 

improper snacking. 

I am just wondering if you are familiar with that study. Are 

there any comments you might have on its findings as they related 

to what we are talking about today? 

Mr. BROWNELL. The results from that study seem a bit counterintuitive at first glance, but I think you are right. If you think 

about what happens to children in the summer where their structured physical activity from organized sports and other things in 

the school declines, and also, my guess—although I do not have 

data handy on this—is that their amount of time in front of the television increases and other screen activities, like computer games 

and Internet websites and things like that. And one could expect 

all those things to increase food intake and to decrease physical activity. 

Senator LINCOLN. You also discussed the views of economists and 

public health experts on the importance of creating conditions 

where actions that enhance health and well-being become the default response, kind of. Maybe you might want to discuss your 

views a little bit more—you have already touched on some of it—

on the argument that it may be useful, particularly for young 

adults, to learn to make healthy choices. I just think that is so 

critically important that we engage our children. My boys cooked 

dinner last night, which was quite interesting. But it was a part 

of me trying to help them understand. I laid out all the foods before 

I left. I made sure they knew the recipe was on the counter. They 

had a wonderful time, and they very much understood a lot of the 

preparation and what they were putting into their dinner. These 

types of choices, as well as the choices they make in selections, are 

important as they reach the real world. 

Mr. BROWNELL. I think your focus on parents is absolutely a good 

idea, and the question becomes how can we best support parents. 

When I give talks these days, I will start off by asking the audience 

if they can list the National Dietary Guidelines or even name the 

two Government agencies that establish them. And even rooms full 

of dieticians cannot do that. 

And then I give people a little quiz, and I ask them to tell me 

which food products are associated with the following slogans, and 

I will say things like, ‘‘Break me off a piece of that...’’? You know, 

Kit Kat bar. Or ‘‘I go cuckoo for...’’? Cocoa Puffs. And nearly 100 

percent of the audience can nail those things. 

35

Now, parents are competing with that, and parents can try their 

best and do their best, and I think we should support them in 

every way possible, and that includes looking at the marketing picture, looking at what is happening in schools. The schools can do 

programs to help educate parents themselves. All these things need 

to be done together in order to have an impact. 

But anything that can possibly be done to support parents, as 

you are doing with your own children, to teach them good rules 

about food and healthy eating I think is absolutely indicated. 

Senator LINCOLN. Yes? 

Ms. HENNRICH. I have one thing as a parent. When my children 

were young, it was the age of recycling. And I am the first to 

admit, I was throwing cans and cardboard in the garbage can. And 

my kids came home from school and said, ‘‘Mom, you cannot do 

that.’’ And I went, ‘‘Why not?’’ ‘‘Well, because you need to recycle 

this.’’ I was, like, ‘‘Oh, all right.’’ And, I mean, I am out in healthy 

Oregon, you know, so I am supposed to be—but we did not really 

know that. As parents, somewhere, you know, that had escaped me 

while I was doing whatever I was doing being a parent. And I 

think there is a corollary here, that when the kids learn about 

fruits and vegetables, they eat things they have never eaten before, 

and then they are at the grocery store. I hear stories over and over 

of kids saying to their parents, ‘‘Mom, we had that at school. We 

should buy some of that. We should have some of that.’’

So I think sometimes we kind of have this thing, well, parents, 

we are supposed to be all knowledgeable, teaching our kids everything that is good for them. Yet sometimes, you know, the best of 

us kind of miss a little piece here or do not have that. So I think 

it is reciprocal. 

And so I think that if the environment in school does not undermine what you are trying to do as a parent, and, in fact, supports 

that, and for the kids who do not have the parents who are necessarily thinking about doing that, if it just kind of——

Senator LINCOLN. Or do not have time. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Right. 

Senator LINCOLN. They are working three jobs, or they do not 

have the time to do that. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Exactly. Exactly. And so, therefore, is the default, as Dr. Brownell says, that they kind of just learn this is what 

we are supposed to be doing and eating, it is the modeling that is 

there. And so it can do nothing but be a win-win for parents and 

children. 

Senator LINCOLN. Mr. Chairman, can I just reinforce another 

thing that Ms. Thornton said, and that is, engaging the community 

in these things. I know we were supposed to, as Senator Chambliss 

in the appropriations, be the next State or one of those five or six 

next States for the fresh fruits and vegetables, and because of the 

CR we did not. We were so excited about that, and we had already 

engaged our fresh fruits and our specialty crop growers, our farmers’ markets and others to be engaged with the school, not only to 

provide those products but to come in and talk to the children 

about how great it is to be a small family farmer of specialty products. And we also had schools where they brought parents into the 

schools and engaging with the local community folks, different 

36

types of things like fly fishing and—I mean, a whole host of things 

that just brings parents into the schools and engages them in the 

decisionmaking and being a part of the child’s life. And it leads to 

all of those other things which are healthy choices and that are important. So I appreciate Ms. Thornton bringing in the rest of the 

community because that is important, too. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Senator Lincoln, for 

your very valuable contribution, especially you and Senator 

Klobuchar, who have kids in school. You can add a lot to this process about what we should do. 

I mentioned the letter that we got from the American Heart Association. I would ask that it be included in the record, and also 

your counsel, Marshall Matz, a long-time friend of this Committee, 

had given us the series of letters, Ms. Thornton, that you mentioned about this and about asking Congress to establish a uniform 

national nutrition standard, and I would ask that all these be 

made a part of the record also. 

[The following information can be found on page 100 in the appendix.] 

Please, what happens when these other ones out there, who are 

not a part of this process as well, they get out, we will put more 

of ours in. So there is nothing controlling their—what do you do 

about the snack foods, the junk food kind of stuff that is coming 

in? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, just for the record, I would also say the other 

signatory was Cadbury Schweppes, so there is——

Chairman HARKIN. Oh, Cadbury Schweppes, OK. That is another 

one, yes. 

Ms. NEELY.—Coke, Pepsi, and Cadbury Schweppes, and a host of 

other brands, but those were the three signatories. 

Obviously, I am more intimately familiar with the beverage 

Memorandum of Understanding, and ours was for—it was our entire board of directors that signed onto it, and so we represent not 

quite 100 percent of the industry but close to it. 

On the snack food side, again, they followed the same sort of conceptual model in that it is all about calories, and the major trademarks that committed to that do represent a healthy share of the 

market, and their agreement is all around calories and limiting calories. 

So I think it is a good start, and I know that——

Chairman HARKIN. But without national standards—I mean, assuming that the voluntary guidelines are fine as far as they go, but 

without national standards, I mean, even you have to admit that 

those who are not signatory to this, the hundreds of other snack 

food companies that are out there in different States, some of these 

are just local businesses and stuff like that. They cover one or two 

States, three States, something like that. They are not as big as 

Frito-Lay, for example, but they are out there. They are still able 

to then, under these guidelines, continue to market their foods in 

the schools. Is that not right? 

Ms. NEELY. Well, I again will speak on behalf of beverage. We 

have a national policy. We agree there should be a national approach on this particular issue. We would certainly talk about 

37

going further. We just, as I said, want there to be some reflection 

that we are a year into implementing a set of standards really that 

we think are the right approach and, you know, that is what we 

want to see promulgated across the country. 

So I will not duck the question. I will just say I cannot speak on 

behalf of snack food, but I can speak on behalf of beverage, that 

we want to see our policy promulgated across the country. 

Chairman HARKIN. I understand that. I am, I guess, trying to 

make the point that—my problem with the voluntary—I do not 

have a problem with it as such. It is great. But it is the implementation of it. And since nothing happens to a school that does not—

or a school district that does not abide by that and nothing happens to a company that is not a signatory to this to go ahead and 

keep marketing this junk food to kids, then it seems to me while 

the effort might be marginally successful and it might do some 

good sometimes, I do not know that it really kind of goes the distance in terms of cutting down on these junk foods. 

Again, I do not mean to belabor that point, but it just seems to 

me that is the problem with not having the national standards in 

there. And I am hopeful that these groups that have done so well—

and, again, I am very complimentary of what you have done. This 

is a great step forward. I just hope that all of you will work with 

us as the Institute of Medicine study comes out. I do not know 

what it is going to say. We asked the experts to do it. They have 

no monetary involvement with companies here and there. We 

thought the National Academy of Sciences would be the best one 

to do the study. And I hope that when they come out we will take 

a look at that and think about those standards and think about 

how we implement that and get the Secretary of Agriculture then 

to implement these standards all over the school, not just in the 

lunchrooms. And I hope that this association, the Alliance for a 

Healthier Generation, would be supportive of that effort. 

Ms. NEELY. Senator, I can assure you that we are very supportive of seeing this implemented all across the school—from the 

beverage standpoint, which is what I can speak to—and we will be 

happy to work with you to that end. 

Chairman HARKIN. I appreciate that. 

Let me just get to one other Internet here. In 2004, Dr. Brownell, 

you know that we put into our child nutrition reauthorization a 

provision that stated that every school in America had to come up 

with a school wellness policy by last July. We did not say what it 

had to be. We just said get the process going, start talking about 

it locally, thinking about what a school wellness policy would be. 

Now, again, we are going to be looking at those. As I said, a lot 

of schools just came in this year. So we really do not know a lot 

about it, but I want to take a look at what they have done locally. 

And I am just going to ask, Dr. Brownell, if you have any preliminary analysis of the guidelines, how they are being formulated, 

how they are being implemented. Do you have any idea at all preliminary what is happening to these? 

Mr. BROWNELL. Well, my colleague at Yale, Marlene Schwartz, is 

undertaking a major study of the implementation of wellness policies in Connecticut. What she has found thus far is that there is 

great variability in the degree to which schools are taking this seriVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:32 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35041.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
38

ously. Some are taking them very seriously and have very progressive policies. Others do the bare minimum that is provided to them 

from the outside as a template and then put it in a drawer afterwards, and there does not seem to be much follow-through. But it 

is a little bit too early to know how they will play out over the 

years. 

I think the fact that the wellness policies are being discussed is 

a very positive move forward, because just even discussion is a 

good thing, and that will get people thinking about it. Some national standard that would support a good wellness policy I think 

would be very helpful because, otherwise, we will get spotty compliance and irregular uptake of what would be good nutrition values 

across school systems. 

So that is why I think the national policy is so important, and 

the variability that we have seen so far would suggest just that. 

Chairman HARKIN. Does anybody else here have any thoughts on 

that? 

Ms. HENNRICH. Senator Harkin, in Oregon, our organization did 

get a copy of all the policies. We have 198 school districts in Oregon, and 189 of those participate in the National School Meals 

Program. So those are the school districts that should turn in policies. 

We got a copy from the Oregon Department of Education of each 

of those policies that were turned in this past September. There 

were 174. So out of 189, there were 15 that did not turn anything 

in. And there is really no piece in this law to say you have got to 

turn them in or else. So those 15 are just kind of hanging out 

there. 

But the 174 that were turned in, actually we have done some initial analysis of them, and this is where I talked about that in only 

20 percent of them, a little less than 20 percent, did they mention 

anything about foods sold outside of the National School Lunch 

Program. So they did not say—like here is one, Ashland School 

District, Jackson County, they did say there would be a minimum 

of 50 percent fruit juice, low-fat and fat-free milk, and soy milk. 

That is what they said in terms of anything that is sold outside of 

the National School Lunch Program. Bandon School District in 

Coos County said ‘‘limits the amount of FMNV’’—with all of the 

problems that we know the definition of FMNV has—‘‘sold in vending machines.’’

So even the ones that did something did pretty minimal when it 

came to anything outside of the School Lunch Program, and this 

is where I was interested in the study that had been nationally 

done on the 100 largest school districts, and they found 20 percent 

of those policies said something about the food sold outside National School Lunch. So, you know, and we are finding, too, it is 

very variable, and when we look at it by the poorest school districts, what we find is we really believe it is a matter of social justice, that those school districts that do not have parent activists, 

do not have school leaders that have time, they have got so many 

other things on their plates, that if you do not have some kind of 

real outside push on this, we are finding that the poorer districts 

really had very minimal policies. Mostly they pulled down—the 

School Board Association in Oregon did kind of a template on the 

39

website, and they pulled it down, inserted the name of their school 

district, and some—this is very sad. Where the Board of Education 

said you could—there were parentheses, and you could choose 

‘‘daily’’ or you could choose ‘‘weekly.’’ I mean, you were supposed to 

make a choice. They turned in the policy that said ‘‘daily weekly.’’ 

You know, all they did was download it, put their district name on 

it, have a quick whatever, pass it, and it went on. 

Chairman HARKIN. Yes, our hope when we did this was, again, 

get the process going, get school districts thinking about it, and 

then States, State Departments of Education, then take a look at 

it, and then out of this amalgam of different approaches, start looking at those that are really doing good things, and then sort of go 

back to the school districts and say, ‘‘We think you ought to do 

this.’’

Now, we did not have at that time, again, any standards, or we 

did not know—but I think the Institute of Medicine study that will 

come out will help sort of, again, give them ideas about what they 

ought to be doing in terms of establishing those kinds of wellness 

standards. So hopefully this process will continue. 

I have taken enough time. I would turn to Senator Lugar for the 

second round. 

Senator LUGAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I was intrigued with your statement, Ms. Thornton, that in Salt 

Lake City as an experiment, they eliminated reduced-price lunch 

and lunch participation—or eliminated the reduced-price fee, rather, and lunch participation rose 50 percent, breakfast participation 

300 percent. It appears that eliminating the reduced-price fee has 

a much greater impact on breakfast but, nevertheless, rather dramatic on lunch. 

You say in your testimony, ‘‘We are not here today urging the 

Congress to expand the free meal program and eliminate the reduced-price program. We are just urging Congress to finally fund 

the reduced-price pilot program to determine once and for all 

whether it is the fee as opposed to some other variable that might 

be keeping those low-income children from the program.’’

I would say common sense has already indicated, given that dramatic a change in Salt Lake City, that the answer would be yes. 

What I am really curious about is whether your association or anybody else has done research on what it would cost if, in fact, despite your admonition, we proceeded to think about eliminating the 

fee. And I raise that because it appears to me this is fairly critical. 

We have been talking about the standards for the meals, but if a 

significant number of children are not even getting the meals to 

begin with, that is academic. That is sort of a second problem. 

Ms. THORNTON. Right. I think that was one school district. I 

think there are other issues that are barriers to breakfast that districts are slowly overcoming like breakfast in the classroom, because in most school districts breakfast is not a part of the school 

day, and in most cases lunch is. So that certainly is one component, 

that cost component. 

Obviously, if the same kids ate breakfast as ate lunch, you know, 

that would be fairly easy to calculate that 30 cents per meal times 

however many students that would be. 

40

I think we will still have some component of children that parents choose to feed them at home, which is fine. Our concern is 

that they have had food. 

Senator LUGAR. Well, that is all of our concern. 

Ms. THORNTON. Yes. 

Senator LUGAR. My concern started when I went on the school 

board in Indianapolis in 1964. The first Federal aid Indianapolis 

ever accepted was for a breakfast program for so-called latch-key 

children. The problem in our country is there are many latch-key 

children, or their equivalent, and we are now looking at it in a different Committee with No Child Left Behind. The fact is that the 

amount of progress by children who are suffering in this way is a 

very tough issue, and school boards are very unhappy that there 

are so many children not meeting the standards. There are lots of 

reasons why they might not, given teacher quality, availability of 

lots of things. But the health issues, the availability of food, basically—then I sort of pick it up from there, that we are not measuring in No Child Left Behind the same children year by year. The 

schools that I am looking at in the inner city of Indianapolis have 

a 50–percent turnover. 

Now, if we do not have some type of at least statewide standard, 

it is very likely that because they are wards of relatives that carry 

them to the next district the next year, they are out of luck. We 

are almost back to the same problem basically with the National 

School Lunch Program. This is why I would like to know what the 

cost is going to be. You are advising us $23 million for the pilot 

project. 

Ms. THORNTON. Right. 

Senator LUGAR. I think that may be useful, but I think maybe 

my prejudice is why, that that has already been established. And 

the question is: What kind of money in the Food Stamp Program, 

which you have cited, which we are going to be taking up in the 

farm bill and reauthorization, what kind of money in the food 

stamp bill needs to be devoted to eliminate this barrier? 

Ms. THORNTON. I cannot give you that information right off, but 

I will certainly see that our association works with USDA and gets 

you that information. 

I would like to say, though, it is amazing to many of us in my 

position that come test time, we will have schools that will pay for 

every child to have a breakfast because they know it makes a difference. And we kind of sit back and laugh and say, you know, they 

can only give you back what they know. It is not going to help all 

those days that they have not had breakfast. 

Senator LUGAR. Well, this is known as ‘‘gaming the system,’’ and 

anybody involved in No Child Left Behind is a student of all the 

ways that occurs. 

Ms. THORNTON. Yes. 

Senator LUGAR. But this is certainly an ingenious way, to feed 

children on the day of the test so that at least they have some pep 

to get a few more points. 

Ms. THORNTON. Right. 

Senator LUGAR. But that really does not suffice, as you know. 

Ms. THORNTON. Right. 

41

Senator LUGAR. And that is why I ask this question, seriously, 

and you are going to provide a serious answer. 

Ms. THORNTON. Yes, we will. 

Senator LUGAR. Thank you very much. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Lugar. 

Senator Casey? 

Senator CASEY. Yes, thank you. One topic that I did not touch 

on in my first round of questions was on the WIC Program, 

Women, Infants, and Children’s Program. And I will assert it more 

than ask a question, but it is my belief that the cuts that are proposed to WIC, especially starting in 2009 and going forward, are 

obviously detrimental to the children and families affected, but I 

think harmful for our economy, and I am going to fight aggressively and mightily and resolutely against those cuts. 

I do not know if anyone on the panel has any direct experience 

with WIC and the impact of the program to make comment. And 

I just have one other question. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Yes, I actually worked for Multnomah County 

Health Department for many years and was the manager of the 

WIC Program in Portland, so I think now it fairly intimately. And 

it is absolutely essential that we get kids started out early, that 

we—Oregon has the highest sustained breast-feeding rate in the 

Nation; 26 percent of all babies in Oregon are breast-fed until 6 

months. And our WIC Program pushes that very hard. I am kind 

of amazed when we say it is the best. I think it ought to be 75 percent, not 25 percent. But we are the leaders in it. But feeding 

mothers well during their pregnancy, we have a program so that 

it is way too small, but some State money has been put in so that 

women can get vouchers for farmers’ markets and buy fresh fruits 

and vegetables that are locally produced in the summer. 

Absolutely, WIC is essential. It is that first building block prenatally, and then as the children grow until they come to school. 

So anything you can do to—and also to get the WIC food package 

changed to include fruits and vegetables is high on our list. 

Senator CASEY. And, again, you are right, we could have more—

we could increase our commodity purchases for WIC. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Yes. 

Senator CASEY. I guess my problem with the way that things 

work in Washington is often when they propose budget cuts to programs like WIC which have a disproportional and devastating impact on people, the budget-meisters did no analysis. It is just, 

Where can we find money to pay for tax cuts? And they cut indiscriminately, with no analysis about waste, fraud, and abuse, no 

analysis about inefficiency. They just bring down the meat axe and 

cut. But that is the way they do it in Washington, but we are going 

to fight against it. 

One quick point. On the question of how we impact behavior, 

whether by children or adults, and especially adults who happen to 

be parents, it is my belief—and I think there is a lot of evidence 

to show this—that unfortunately the cold reality in terms of how 

we impact how people think, I think, Mr. Brownell, you mentioned 

the impact of surveying a group of even experts, and they can recite the TV ads. Whether it is children’s health insurance programs, whether it is nutrition, whatever it is in terms of getting 

42

people to focus on a problem, to be aware of it, to take steps to improve—or to change behavior, so much of this revolves around television and the advertising. I know it works in the beverage context. 

It has an impact on all of our lives. We are all subjected to that, 

and we are all prone to believe television ads and be impacted by 

them. 

My question is this: In this context of changing behavior, in this 

context of making parents and school officials and, obviously, children more aware of these choices they make about nutrition, is 

there any initiative that you are aware of—public, private, nonprofit, whatever—across the country, any initiative that focuses on 

paid television ads to impact behavior? Because if we are not doing 

that, all the laws and regulations in the world are not going to be 

enough. And I just want to know if anyone has any information 

about any initiative to pay for ads to impact this positively. 

Ms. NEELY. Well, Senator, I would certainly encourage you to 

look at what the Advertising Council, which is the nonprofit arm 

of the advertising industry, is doing. They have a major campaign 

in that regard of communications of all sorts on this issue. The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, one of their partners is Nickelodeon, and as a parent with children who do like Nickelodeon, I 

can attest that they do an excellent job with their paid spaces to 

communicate healthy messages about this is the most important 

meal of the day, that kind of thing. And I will hear my children 

playing back what they saw on those commercials on Nickelodeon, 

so I know that they are very effective. So there is some good work 

being done out there by professionals that is supported by our companies and others. 

Mr. BROWNELL. One quick comment. There are some positive 

changes, and the challenge by the Ad Council I think is one of 

them. But they are a drop against the tidal wave, and they are 

simply not going to have an impact given the massive, massive 

amount of advertising for unhealthy foods. 

I also would like to say that the amount of exposure of children 

to food marketing in general is increasing at the same time that 

television exposure to food marketing is going down. It is because 

other things have come in to take its place. So food industry 

websites that have engaging games for children would be an example. It will soon be the case that food advertisements will be 

beamed over cell phones to children specific to their location because of the GPS chips that are built into the modern cell phones. 

And there are a number of viral—in fact, I mentioned in my testimony, in my written testimony, that the industry uses the words 

‘‘viral marketing,’’ ‘‘stealth marketing,’’ and ‘‘guerilla marketing’’ to 

describe the ways they are going after children. 

Senator CASEY. Anybody else? 

Ms. HENNRICH. I guess in the Northwest, Kaiser Permanente has 

done an ad campaign called ‘‘Thrive,’’ and they have had some 

great ads on, you know, bicycling to work, on eating antioxidants 

and fruits and vegetables. But it is a drop in the bucket compared 

to what is happening on the other side. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Casey. 

Senator Klobuchar? 

43

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up some 

of Senator Lugar’s questions about the breakfasts. In Minnesota, 

actually, the State legislature eliminated the reduced-price category for school breakfasts, and they made school breakfast free to 

all students who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. And 

so I saw this in the school where my—basically the whole school 

would go down and have breakfast in the morning, and I was horrified to hear that story about just on the day of a test. 

I wondered if any of you knew how many other States had done 

this, where they have eliminated, as Senator Lugar was talking 

about, the free and reduced—eliminated the reduced-price breakfast and have replaced it with the free breakfast for poorer schools. 

Ms. HENNRICH. Oregon has not. 

Ms. THORNTON. I am not aware of other States. That is not to 

say there is not any. I know there are some individual districts. My 

district, for instance, our local board pays for breakfast for all elementary school students. But I think these are isolated instances 

and not really the rule nationwide. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. OK. The other thing is I was talking before—I was listening to Senator Lincoln, and I want to make clear 

that I think education plays a major role in this. My daughter actually last week came and told me that she said that Daddy has been 

saying pack my lunch, and he said that the fruit roll-up was a 

fruit. ‘‘I do not think that is right, do you, Mom?’’ she said. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. ‘‘I think that is a dessert,’’ she said. 

So, in any case, I do think that it plays a major role, but I also, 

again, want to go back to the fact that when there are just these 

endless possibilities of food that is not good for kids, I do not think 

we are going to get to where we want to be. And I wondered if 

you—if there are any statistics—I guess I would ask you, Mr. 

Brownell—of schools where we have put that standard in place, 

that is in force, where we have seen not just, oh, yes, they are eating healthy food, but we have seen a decrease in obesity. Are there 

examples of that from around the country? 

Mr. BROWNELL. There are some, but we are early enough in the 

research that we have mainly anecdotal reports at the moment. 

But I think in the next several years we will see an awful lot more 

research. 

What is available—some of which has come from the University 

of Minnesota, by the way—has been quite positive. 

Ms. HENNRICH. One study that we had—Amanda Purcell from 

California Center for Public Health Advocacy came up and spoke 

to our legislature last week because we are working on trying to 

get State standards in Oregon, and she referenced a study out of 

UCLA where L.A. Unified went ahead and implemented the basic 

standards that we are talking about in Oregon and that are now 

California law. They did them before they became California law. 

And the study actually did a control, looked at the schools on L.A. 

Unified that implemented early versus others that did not. And I 

cannot remember the researcher at UCLA, but they actually found 

a year later smaller waist circumferences and some other indicators. And so I have asked her to get me that study because it does 

seem like one that actually really looked at just changing what is 

44

being sold in the hallways and in the a la carte and in the school 

stores, and that it did really make a difference. So I think it is beginning to come out. 

Ms. THORNTON. I think you will see, too, there are any number 

of school districts that food sold within the cafeteria has changed 

dramatically from, you know, obviously eliminating deep fat fryers, 

changing tremendously the kinds of foods. If a la carte is sold, they 

would meet the same standards that USDA would be recommending. It may be a la carte because it is a higher, maybe a whole 

muscle meat product, a more expensive food, but still, we sell apples a la carte. They would be on the line, maybe bananas, like a 

tossed salad that a child may buy just as an individual. 

So I think you are seeing kinds of things sold that are changing 

tremendously, and I think you are going to see this continue to 

change. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. 

I just have a couple things I just want to close up on here. Ms. 

Nece, you mentioned in your statement about infrastructure needs 

for the Fruit and Vegetable Program. Could you elaborate a little 

bit? What infrastructure needs? 

Ms. NECE. Sure. From my perspective as a food service director, 

what needs to transpire with many schools across the Nation as we 

continue to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, particularly 

fresh, we run into just storage facilities to be able to handle the 

volume of fresh fruits and produce that come in at any given time. 

So it is dealing with whether it is equipment or the additional cost 

of purchasing, not every school district in the Nation has easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables. 

Chairman HARKIN. Has what? 

Ms. NECE. Does not have easy access to fresh fruits that are financially—or that are reasonable in cost. 

Chairman HARKIN. I see. 

Ms. NECE. And so as schools continue to increase their options 

making fruits and vegetables available, it is looking at what are 

the needs that need to support that additional offering of fruits and 

vegetables. 

Chairman HARKIN. Storage, basically. 

Ms. NECE. Storage, whether it is equipment. For us in the Fruit 

and Vegetable Pilot, we actually had to go to daily delivery from 

a produce supplier to be able to manage the fresh produce on a 

daily basis. 

Chairman HARKIN. The refrigeration and things that you have in 

the school lunchroom, that cannot handle that? 

Ms. NECE. Well, part of what we were doing is we were also increasing fruits and vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables in our 

school meals programs. So you have fresh fruits and vegetables 

coming in for breakfast, for lunch, for the pilot programs during 

that entire timeframe. So you increase what needs to have refrigerated storage. 

Chairman HARKIN. I would also like to look at what we can do 

in the farm bill on this program to encourage somehow more 

local—I think it was Senator Chambliss or someone who brought 

that up about more local growing and consumption of local fruits 

45

and vegetables and how we can do that. And any thoughts any of 

you have on that I would really appreciate that, unless you have 

something right now that you have on your mind. But if you do 

not——

Ms. HENNRICH. Well, I know Portland Public Schools is working 

very hard with local farmers in having a Harvest of the Month, and 

they did winter squash the other day in all the schools and actually 

got a lot of that product donated by the squash growers in Oregon. 

But one of the things that I do not know the specifics, and I 

think that you can speak much more to them, is some of—what I 

have heard, at least, is that there are some of the procurement 

rules that make it a little difficult to try to advantage local producers of fruits and vegetables from Oregon. And I am not adequately knowledgeable to speak of that, but I have heard Kristy 

Obbink, the Portland Public School Director, talk about trying to 

work within some guidelines that make it more difficult sometimes 

than she thinks it should be. 

Ms. THORNTON. Right, and those——

Chairman HARKIN. Dr. Brownell, do you have some—oh, I am 

sorry. 

Ms. THORNTON. I am sorry. Go on. 

Mr. BROWNELL. Well, I also agree it is very important. The 

American food system has changed in such a way that people have 

a distant psychological and physical relationship with food. It tends 

to be shipped long distances. It has so many ingredients and additives and preservatives that you hardly know what it is by the time 

you eat it. And so anything that can shrink the psychological and 

physical distance I think would be quite helpful, and local foods 

would go a long way in that direction. 

Ms. THORNTON. We are working very closely with the Farm to 

School Program in many, many of our States. We do have some 

issues that we are working to overcome. One in Kentucky, so many 

of the farmers are fairly small farmers, and to get the quantity of 

foods we need is sometimes an issue. 

Also, if we have something on the menu, we depend on that product being there that day. Maybe we had a lot of rain or had cool 

weather or whatever and that product is not there. We have not 

contracted with the outside vendor to get it, so I have 16,000 kids 

sitting there with nothing. 

So we are slowly working, though, with them, and we certainly, 

I think all of us, want to continue to do that to support our local 

farmers. 

Chairman HARKIN. I am just, again, looking for suggestions or 

advice how we might do that. One of the things that you just kind 

of hit on, and, that is, you have all these small farmers, but there 

is no kind of a central place where they can send it where it is 

processed, packaged, and shipped on to you. 

Ms. THORNTON. Right. 

Chairman HARKIN. It is that kind of thing, and so we are looking 

at something like that, either through the cooperative co-ops or 

something. I do not know how we do it, but to somehow promote 

that kind of concept. 

Ms. THORNTON. And then in our part of the country, you know, 

obviously we do not plant until Derby Day, so we do not get food 

46

that ripens until in the summer. So we use a lot of that during the 

summer months, but to actually use the fresh product—maybe a 

little bit in August in schools that start early, and we can do a little bit with apples. But the season is not when we are in school. 

Chairman HARKIN. The same way where I am from, too. 

Ms. THORNTON. Yes. 

Chairman HARKIN. The season is different. 

[Pause.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Derek Miller, who knows everything about all 

this stuff, just gave me a note, and Derek says that OMB regulations have a prohibition on geographical preferences in procurement. I asked him what we could do about it, and he said, ‘‘Well, 

you can override it.’’ Well, we will have to think about that. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. One last thing I wanted to cover with Ms. 

Neely and Dr. Brownell. Ms. Neely, you talked about a public opinion survey. You said, ‘‘A recent nationwide survey...When asked to 

choose between the School Beverage Guidelines and a policy...parents supported our guidelines...when asked if they preferred our guidelines or a complete vending ban...they chose the 

guidelines by a margin of 82 percent to 14 percent.’’

Could you make that available to us? I have not been able to get 

this survey. Who did the survey? 

Ms. NEELY. I would be happy to. It was done by Public Opinion 

Strategies, the pollster for NBC and the Wall Street Journal. 

Chairman HARKIN. Yes. Could you make that available to the 

Committee? 

Ms. NEELY. Certainly. 

Chairman HARKIN. In its raw form, so we know the questions. 

And, again, I have the same question for you, Mr. Brownell. You 

said trends in public opinion, which seem to kind of go the other 

way, and I would like to know who did this. 

Mr. BROWNELL. We will send the data on who did the various 

numbers in that sheet because they come from different polls over 

time. 

Chairman HARKIN. I would like to see it. 

Mr. BROWNELL. Also, when you do polls, how you ask questions 

matters a lot. 

Chairman HARKIN. That is why I want to see the raw data. 

Mr. BROWNELL. You should see the way the questions——

Ms. NEELY. But I would say just from the soft drink questions 

specifically, probably we would agree with your data. What we 

heard from parents and saw in market research, which one of the 

reasons the industry wanted to move forward with this is that they 

want full-calorie regular soft drinks out of the schools, and we 

agree with parents. 

So I do not think our data is inconsistent with that. What our 

policy says is no-calorie soft drinks in the schools, and parents, 

again, seemed to embrace this sort of calorie construct. So whether 

it is sports drinks, soft drinks, whatever, that they are within a 

calorie construct that makes sense. If it is obesity we are trying to 

tackle, it is about calories, not people’s personal likes and dislikes 

of individual products. 

47

Chairman HARKIN. OK. It would just be interesting to take a 

look at that. 

Well, that is all I have for today. I just again thank the School 

Nutrition Association for all of the great work you do, all of you 

who are here for your annual meetings here. I urge you to make 

sure you contact all your Representatives and Senators when you 

are here. You have a lobby day someday. I do not know. Is that 

tomorrow? Oh, it is today. OK, today on the Hill. I am sorry I kept 

you here this long then. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. I want you to get out there and do your work 

and get a hold of your Representatives and Senators and let them 

know that you support national guidelines. Do we have a House 

companion? 

Derek tells me there is going to be a companion bill in the 

House. Perhaps they are going to try to introduce that today, Shays 

and Woolsey. So on the House side, if you can go to the House side, 

really encourage your Representatives to get on board this, I think 

that we could get something done about this hopefully this year 

when we do the farm bill and get it through. 

On the Fruit and Vegetable Program, we are going to see what 

we can do about expanding that. 

I think the bottom line really is that we all want what is best 

for our kids. And, you know, leave no child behind, that is fine, I 

am supportive of it. We need to fund it better, obviously. But we 

also need to leave no child behind in terms of health, either, and 

like it or not, schools are now becoming a place where kids get 

most of their nutrition during the day, and that is just it. You 

know, no more do we have kids that eat their breakfast at home 

and maybe even have a healthy meal at home at night. So we are 

looking at our schools to provide that. We all want to make sure 

that the foods and beverages that they consume there not only are 

healthy in and of themselves, but that also promote their thinking 

about this. You know, at an early age when they start eating fruits 

and vegetables, they find they like them, they get satisfaction from 

it, and then it carries on later on in life. If kids start eating potato 

chips and drinking soda pop at age 4, well, you have set a bad 

course for the future. But when they start eating fresh fruits and 

vegetables and they get the flavor of those if it is fresh, I think it 

starts establishing habits and life patterns for these kids as they 

grow up. 

Again, I do not want to be alarmist on this or anything like that, 

but, you know, that is why the voluntary guidelines are fine, but 

I have just got to say that we are in almost a crisis situation. We 

have got to do something right away. This diabetes thing that is 

hitting us is just awesome. And when we look ahead to the costs 

to our society downstream of this, boy, it is just amazing. 

So we have got to do what we can early on to start preventing 

this and getting kids healthier, and that also means exercise in 

school, too, by the way. I do not want to leave that out. As you 

know, I have my bill in on the Play Day at school and to make sure 

that we, again, within whatever confines that we can here, try to 

encourage schools to provide physical exercise for all those kids at 

least once a day. 

48

I remember I was in Japan one time, and I went out to a factory. 

About 9:30 in the morning, the whistle blew and everybody stopped 

working, and they all stood by their desks and their workstations 

and did exercises for 5 minutes. I was told by my guy who was 

there taking me through that, you know, what they had found was 

that mid-morning people get a little lethargic, and that is when 

mistakes are made. So get the blood moving again, get them exercising. And then I was told that they do that in schools in Japan. 

I do not know that for a fact, but I was told that kids in school 

actually do that in school. 

Well, that is why we need to promote both ends, the wellness in 

terms of what they eat during the day, what is available to them 

to eat during the day, and then to get them to do exercise, get kids 

out playing. To me it is just abominable that we are building elementary schools in America now without playgrounds. Without 

playgrounds. One principal is quoted as saying, ‘‘Well, my job is to 

educate kids, not to build monkey bars.’’ A cute saying, but it 

misses the mark completely, that these kids do need to have exercise. 

Well, that is enough of that. I just thank you all very much. 

Thank you for being here. Thanks for your great testimony. Thanks 

for all the good work that you do in getting our kids a good, 

healthy start in life. And we will try to do our part in the farm bill 

with your advice and your input, all of you, on what we ought to 

be doing. 

Thank you very much. 

[Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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