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Editorial
No surprise in effects of cutting school junk food
Thursday, November 4, 2010
California voters rejected legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, and a study in England, using a wide range of criteria related to various drugs' harm to users and others, found that alcohol is by far the most dangerous.
No surprise in either one of those developments, or that we are hesitant to make drugs more accessible, despite the failed Prohibition experiment.
Food is a substance none of us can do without, yet there is justification for restricting certain types of it as well.
A new study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln makes the case.
The three-year study of seventh and 12th graders and their parents at eight Midwestern schools found that barring all junk food from a la carte lines during school hours would result in an 18 percent reduction in overweight or obese students.
With more than 30 million children being served lunch and 9.7 breakfast each school day, that's a big deal.
The information seems to indicate the need to expand the USDA's current ban on selling so-called Foods of Limited Nutritional Value to things like candy bars, soda, potato chips, cookies and other high-fat snack foods.
The researchers also called on marketers to limit or eliminate marketing their sales of junk foods in schools as well.
While freedom of choice is a right to be protected in adults, limiting the range of choices of foods available to children in a school environment is the right choice.