See ya later, soda

EAGLE-VAIL — It’s lunchtime at Battle Mountain High School, and the cafeteria is hopping with activity — kids buying food, trading desserts, catching up on the gossip they missed during morning classes.

At one table, Elif Gazioglu, 17, sits with a handful of friends chowing down on a slice of pizza. She dips bites of pie in ranch dressing and washes lunch down with a root beer she purchased from the vending machine — not exactly the picture of healthy eating.

As a junior, Gazioglu will escape high school before a new mandate takes a large portion of sugary sodas out of high school. Starting in 2008, school children all over the country will have a smaller, healthier selection of drinks.

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation — a collaboration of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association — recently convinced large several drink companies to pull the most unhealthy beverages out of schools and out of the hands of more than 35 million students.

Under the new guidelines, only lower calorie and nutritious drinks will be sold to schools. Elementary and middle schools will be limited to juice, milk and water, and high school students will have a few more options, including diet sodas, sports drinks and teas.

“Everything is a choice, and really it’s for us to educate and for parents to educate,” said Ray Edel, the Eagle County Schools’ director of food services. “In the high school level, kids are at the age where they should be able to make their own decisions. They need to make choices. That’s part of the educational experience.”

Take away soda, take away funding

Giving kids healthier options might seem like a good idea, but it comes with consequences. Taking soda out of schools depends on school administrators being willing to let it happen — a dicey subject considering schools’ activities receive funding from vending machine sales.

While a small school like Meadow Mountain Elementary only makes about $60 each month from vending machines, high schools can rake in about a couple thousand dollars every month. The money goes to fund after-school clubs, activities and sports, even uniforms for the football team.

The lack of unhealthy drinks is sure to decrease the schools’ revenue, said Dave Scott, the athletics director of Eagle Valley High School. And he’s not alone in his opinion.

“It will drop us,” Scott said. “And are all these ‘eat healthy’ people willing to step up and fund some of these things that won’t be funded anymore? Everybody wants to put in a rule, but they don’t realize the consequences.”

The William J. Clinton Foundation did not return inquiries by press time.

Healthy schools Eagle County’s school wellness committee’s goals • To create an environment for developing and practicing lifelong healthy habits. • To promote and support proper dietary habits contributing to students’ health and academic performance. • To provide more opportunities for students to do physical activity

Eagle County’s efforts

An Eagle County school wellness committee, formed in the fall of 2005, has met twice and is discussing walking the fine line of keeping things healthy and financially viable.

“You can put a lot of things on paper but to make it real on a daily basis is a real challenge,” said Mike Gass, the district’s director of secondary education. “We don’t want to tie the good intentions of people who are sponsoring events or things like booster clubs. We don’t want to eliminate hot dogs at ball games.”

Edel has made strides at the younger grade levels removing the most unhealthy choices, like ice cream and chips, but he knows there’s more work to be done.

Who’s helping? The following companies agreed to pull the most unhealthy drinks out of the country’s schools. • Cadbury Schweppes • Coca-Cola • PepsiCo • American Beverage Association

Will it work?

Of course, removing soda from school won’t stop the oldest students from drinking them.

“They’re just going to walk across the street to get it,” said Jennifer Frederick, the office manager at Red Canyon High School. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Frederick said removing some drinks will contribute to truancy and tardiness when kids go elsewhere to buy them.

And even if regular soda is taken out of schools, there’s still the junk food — candy, chips, french fries — to fatten up the youth of America with empty calories.

But while teachers and administrators puzzle over the prospect, the teenagers who will be affected by the change aren’t fazed. Even though freshman Allison Lanes buys sodas from school at least three times a day, she said switching drinks won’t be a problem.

“I’ll drink diet or something else,” she said. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Acceptance inevitable

As childhood obesity escalates around the country, it’s comforting to know it isn’t a problem in the Eagle Valley, school staff said.

“I will tell you things have changed. Kids are drinking a lot of water,” Scott said.

And looking around the cafeteria at Battle Mountain, he might be right. Water, juice and especially Gatorade far outnumber the sodas.

Carolyn Neff, the district’s director of elementary education, said there might be shock about the changes now, but the benefits will be realized after it’s implemented.

“It’s like the stop-smoking campaign — people didn’t like it at first but now it’s widely accepted,” she said.

Staff Writer Nicole Frey can be reached at 748-2927, or nfrey@vaildaily.com.

Vail, Colorado

Timeframe The beverage industry will work to remove regular soft drinks and replace them with healthier alternatives starting in 2008, expecting to hit 75 percent of American schools in the 2008/2009 school year. The change should be completed in the 2009/2010 school year, as long as schools are willing to comply.