A bill aimed at removing junk food like sodas and high-calorie snack food from South Carolina public school vending machines was recently rejected. Our schoolchildren are among the most obese in the nation, so why did this happen?
“We support the intention of the legislation (to improve students’ eating habits),” said Scott Price of the School Boards Association. “But the local boards and communities should be making those decisions for themselves.”
Looking a little deeper, though, we can get a glimpse of the real reason the bill was opposed.
Some Greenville high schools earn as much as $70,000 annually from vending machine sales, said Quentin Cavanagh, marketing and training specialist for Greenville County schools. “None of (the principals) want to sell this stuff. But they need the revenue,” Cavanagh told the House panel.
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But the bottled water and granola bars that replaced the Cokes and Snickers candy bars were not as popular with students. As a result, some high schools [who removed junk food] suffered big cuts in vending machine revenue for student activities.
We’ve got to ask ourselves a question. If schools are so desperate for funds that they’re terrified of putting less junk food in their vending machines because it might lower sales, then aren’t we underfunding our schools?
Well, the good news is that they’ve now put a price on the health and well being of their students – 70 large.
There are two sad facts though, 1) parents need to educate their kids about diet and nutrition (hard to do when ma and pa weigh 300 lbs each), and 2) if I kicked in 70k to one of those schools, do I think they’d remove the machines or replace the junk with healthier options? Not a chance. Kickbacks to the principal, superintendent, and school boards.