Posted on 2/23/2005, 9:15:30 PM by Constitutionalist Conservative
 Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Austin High School sophomore Brady Myatt, 16, now has lower-fat choices such as wraps to order from food services worker Josephine Maldonado. The school is also trying to make its vending selections healthier. |
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, February 19, 2005
When Austin High School administrators removed candy from campus vending machines last year, the move was hailed as a step toward fighting obesity. What happened next shows how hard it can be for schools to control what students eat on campus.
The candy removal plan, according to students at Austin High, was thwarted by classmates who created an underground candy market, turning the hallways of the high school into Willy-Wonka-meets-Casablanca.
Soon after candy was removed from vending machines, enterprising students armed with gym bags full of M&M's, Skittles, Snickers and Twix became roving vendors, serving classmates in need of an in-school sugar fix. Regular-size candy bars like the ones sold in vending machines routinely sold in the halls for $1.50.
"There was no sugar in the vending machines, so (student vendors) could make a lot of money," said Hayden Starkey, an Austin High junior who said he was not one of the candy sellers. "I heard kids were making $200 a week just selling candy."
The Austin High administration, which won't elaborate on how much or little it knew about the candy black market, has since replenished the vending machines with some types of candy.
Principal Barbara Spelman said the school did so after becoming more familiar with the minimal nutritional standards.
According to the state, milk chocolate, for example, meets minimal nutritional standards because it does have milk in it. Candy with peanuts contains protein. The vending machines still don't carry Starburst, Skittles and other so-called pure sugar products.
As for students peddling such contraband, Spelman would only say, "I'm sure there's a temptation to do that. Is it something that we condone? If there's something that we hear about that's going on, we do deal with that because they shouldn't be doing that."
Regardless of the reason, Austin High's retreat on treats highlights the limits to which school districts can create a healthier eating environment for students on school grounds as education officials around the state and the nation work to combat the growing health crisis of childhood obesity.
In 2000-01, 16.5 percent of children 6 to 19 years old were overweight, and an additional 15 percent were at risk of becoming overweight, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The picture is more bleak in Texas, where the rate of overweight and obese children is almost 50 percent higher than the national average. In a September Governor's Conference on Childhood Obesity, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, state health commissioner, said that one in three babies born in Texas is projected to develop Type 2 diabetes as a result of obesity-related problems — a far cry from 10 years ago, when children were rarely diagnosed with that form of the disease.
State lawmakers have proposed a number of options to address the obesity problem. State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, has introduced a bill to provide incentives to school districts to keep campus facilities open for recreation after school hours. In January, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, filed a bill that would require schools to calculate each student's body-mass index and send the assessments to parents along with report cards.
But at the local level, the effort to trim expanding waistlines has focused largely on purging schools of junk food and replacing it with healthier options.
In August 2002, the Austin district took all carbonated beverages out of its schools. Renegotiating the Coca-Cola food services contract to replace sodas with options such as sports drinks and bottled water cost the district $2 million over five years, Superintendent Pat Forgione said.
The district also shrank the portions of its cafeteria offerings to more accurately reflect USDA-approved serving sizes. And this year, it redesigned its menus, replacing candy bars with multigrain snacks and low-fat, baked potato chips.
Three weeks ago, Austin schools introduced lunchroom stations serving made-to-order wraps, and Austin district food services manager Chris Carillo-Spano said that made-to-order sub sandwiches will be coming soon.
But when students go off-campus for lunch, they often go to fast-food chains such McDonald's or Wendy's, or "greasy-spoon" establishments close to school.
In the Austin district, only seniors are allowed to venture off campus during the school day, and Reagan Assistant Principal Paul Darby said that on his campus, "there are consequences" for underclassmen leaving school grounds, starting with a one-day, in-school suspension for a first offense.
But students at Austin and Reagan said that they know of many underclassmen who go off-campus for lunch anyway. Others get seniors to bring food back for them.
Then there are the students' reports of the underground candy market.
School officials at Austin High removed all candy from the vending machines during the summer, replacing it with items such as tuna kits, granola bars and baked chips. They began bringing the nutritionally acceptable candy back in November.
During the prohibition, one student, who asked not to be identified, said that he sold candy at the school and made as much as $50 in a day.
Students said that while they did not know of anyone being disciplined for selling candy on campus, some were called in by administrators and told to stop. However, ninth-grader Justin Francisco said, the underground market only slowed "after they put candy back in" the vending machines.
And if the supply of sweets runs low again, there's always the candyman, waiting in the wings.
"It's all about supply and demand," said Austin junior Scott Roudebush. "We've got some entrepreneurs around here."
Bwahaha!
The school is stupid to think that banning candy would work.
BWAHAHA
The free market libertarians on FR are gonna LOVE this!
I got busted by the school principal, Mr. PU, in the 2nd grade for selling cininmon toothpicks for a nickle each.
I had $3 in sales when he called me to his office.
I love capitalism.
There are exceptions for candy flavored condoms....
Who woulda thunk it! Prohibition leads to black market, hmm, that doesn't ring any historical bells.....
No, the dog isn't checking for coca plants, it's checking for cacao plants.
We recently had to sell $1.00 per bar candies (52 bars per box) for a fundraiser. Each family had sell 3 boxes...I thought, oh great...we will never sell these. Wrong!!! They were remodeling the break room where my PaDad works (ie., no vending machines) and people were seeking him out (he actually had phone calls asking if he could 'save a Snickers for them'). Don't take a midday sugar break away...things could get ugly.
How much candy can be eaten in school anyway? We weren't allowed to eat in class or in the halls. We had breakfast, then lunch then after school we went home. Stopped on the way home for a coke or candy with friends but that was it. How come kids have to eat all day long anyway? They are in school not out on the playground.
This sounds like a bonanza for some enterprising kid who passes a store on the way to school. HEHEHE Black market candy. Gad, whatta country.
It's probably more cake/cookies and sugar-sodas that are the problem than straightforward sweets. A Reecy-cup is actually pretty good for you...
We had cinnamon rolls for five cents, but they were bigger than two fists and loaded with sugar, butter, and starch -- what a treat!. Kids can't be stopped from eating what they want, but we had a coach who told us the right things to eat, stopped us from eating junk when he caught us, and ran the you know what out of us with two workouts a day. There was no fat on our cross country team. If kids would be re-motivated to use their bodies there would be no obesity problem among the young. This coach was unusual, and his team won a national championship but he sent home a diet which my mom was supposed to fix for us. (She rejected it because it had too much meat for our budget.) So lets get the coaches back and have the kids hit the track. And forget about government solving this one.
Bring in the candy-sniffing dogs! Many, many years ago in grade school I sold candy to classmates for a little while--but stopped after suffering inventory "shrinkage," I didn't have access to a secure locker. I also sold knives that I ordered from the backs of comic books, then marked up.
Hell, if they can't even successfully ban drugs from the public schools, how do they think they're going to ban candy?
Silly school administrators.
I was just thinking of the contradiction on something like that. More often than not there are kids selling candy as school fund raisers in front of the local grocery store. Wonder if this school uses such fund raisers? In essence they would be telling prospective buyers "hey, we don't allow the kids to eat this stuff, but we want YOU to buy some and eat it". What if a kid that's trying to sell the candy for a fund raiser starts selling to other students at school since candy was taken out? LOL What are they going to tell him/her?..."Don't you DARE sell that evil candy here at school! By the way, have you sold your 3 boxes yet??? We NEED that money!!!"
Sheesh.
Did you get busted under the "no weapons in school" policy?
Bet you would today. Why, it would be a fourth level offense and you'd be off to some thug school.
Did anyone see the article a few weeks ago about some preschools not allowing fruit juice anymore, since some studies say fruit juice is fattening? Then, there are the people who say dairy is bad. Our water is polluted. There isn't going to be much left to drink soon.
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