Kellogg's and Otis Spunkmeyer Decide What Your Kids Eat at School

America's kids might finally see school lunch reform. The Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act, an $8 billion plan to improve the accessibility and quality of school lunches, passed today in the House's Education and Labor Committee. Reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act will go on to a full vote in the House and Senate, and will hopefully get passed into law within the next few weeks. Reform comes not a moment too soon—Congress hasn't raised the federal reimbursement rate for lunches since 1973.

But at the same time progress is being made on improving the gross vittles school cafeterias dish out, another major problem comes to light: food manufacturer kickbacks. As Ed Bruske recently reported on "The Slow Cook" blog, schools' food service providers regularly receive corporate rebates from major junk food producers. These rebates provide monetary incentives for food service providers to stock cafeterias with unhealthy goods like Pop Tarts, sugary cereals, and flavored milks. And we wonder why one out of every three of the nation's kids and teens is overweight or obese.

Bruske delved into how this shady system impacts Washington, D.C.'s public schools. His investigation revealed some sobering statistics. D.C.'s school system employs Chartwells, a major food service provider, to stock meals for 122 of its cafeterias. Since the fall of 2008 through February of 2010, Chartwells received almost $1.1 million in corporate kickbacks from companies like Kellogg's, Otis Spunkmeyer, Pepperidge Farm, and Cloverland Dairy. In other words, when Chartwells ordered products like Apple Jacks cereal, Pop Tarts, flavored milks, or Pepperidge Farm Giant Goldfish Grahams for school cafeterias, these treats' producers cut Chartwells a rebate check. A little "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" kind of deal.

Shockingly, this type of junk food pimp-age is perfectly legal, and it goes on across the country with major food service providers like Chartwells, Sodexo, and Aramark. Food service providers are technically supposed to give the rebates back to the school system, but some folks suggest that they may keep a little to line their own pockets, too. Sugary, fattening treats like Pop Tarts and muffins make their way onto kids' lunch trays, billion-dollar food corporations cut service providers a check, and the nation's childhood obesity epidemic rages on.

Corporate kickbacks are clearly a problem because they further this pattern of unhealthy eating in America's cafeterias. But what's worse is that corporate pandering threatens to undermine any real reform that may take place under a reauthorized Child Nutrition Act. Already, critics say the Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act doesn't go far enough in bettering school meals, providing only a slightly increased federal reimbursement rate per lunch that's barely enough to put a few carrot sticks on kids' plates. But the plan also calls for farm-to-school programs and eliminating junk food and soda from vending machines. These are small steps, but they're steps in the right direction. Allowing food service providers to continue to accept kickbacks from junk food giants would totally reverse any progress made under new legislation.

The word "reform" gets thrown around a lot when discussing school lunch, and I'm hopeful that it will actually happen. But in order to really revolutionize the way the nation's kids eat, lawmakers need to examine the diverse set of factors that influences what ends up on cafeteria tables. Reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act is a small step towards reform. But in order to really improve school lunches and children's health, we've also got to kick out corporate kickbacks.

Photo credit: poolie via Flickr