Oregon anti-junk food bill turns into nutritional guideline proposal

The new bill is the target of criticism from those who supported an out-and-out ban, claiming that nutritional guidelines will not help significantly decrease child and teenage obesity, a problem that the initial bill sought to rectify. Nutritional guidelines would also allow each district to decide which foods could and could not advertise in schools.

• Plans for a statewide ban on junk food and soft drinks in school died a premature death in the state Senate this week, when a panel of lawmakers instead endorsed a proposal to require schools to adopt nutrition guidelines and other "student wellness" policies.
• The Senate Education committee approved a rewritten version of a bill that originally sought to ban the sale of food or drink during school hours that is of "minimal nutritional value" according to federal guidelines.
• The new version bans no foods or beverages of any sort.
• Instead, it requires each school board to adopt a "wellness policy" that includes goals for nutrition education and physical activities and nutrition guidelines "that promote student health and reduce childhood obesity."
• The bill also requires school districts to come up with guidelines on advertising foods on school campuses and sets public-participation standards for how each district develops its guidelines.
• Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said her rewrite represented a pragmatic approach to the growing concerns over how to address obesity among children.
• "I think we have a bill that can pass both chambers, that does have some teeth," she said.
• Bill Morrisette, a Springfield Democrat and chief sponsor of a more far-reaching bill regulating what foods schools can provide students, voted against the rewritten bill and said he was undecided whether to support it in the full Senate.
• "It's a feel-good bill," he told The Register-Guard of Eugene.
• Mary Lou Hennrich, executive director of the Community Health Partnership, which was pushing for increased nutrition standards statewide, said her group couldn't overcome objections from the food and soft-drink industries.