Trading Students' Health to Buy Office Supplies

by Jill Richardson · 2009-04-28 06:08:00 UTC
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Check out this hard-hitting op ed from the New York Times. Wow! They say:

Even if the switch [from sodas to healthy drinks] costs money, so be it. The schools should not be trading their students’ health to buy office supplies.

Sooooo true. The article was written to support a bill by California Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. Woolsey is the first food stamps Mom to be elected to Congress so she knows what it's like to try to feed your family healthy food on a very limited budget. It's not easy - and no doubt families in such a predicament REALLY rely on the food served in school breakfasts and lunches to help make ends meet. Under her bill, the government will update the standards of what's allowed in schools and what's not (right now the rules are very close to "anything goes"). Tom Harkin will introduce similar legislation into the Senate. As recently as 2008, there was not enough support in Congress to pass these bills that would improve school nutrition standards. If you want to help out, drop your Congresscritters a line and ask them to support H.R.1324. So far, there are 120 co-sponsors of the bill in the House and 218 votes are needed to pass it.

Photo credit: Attempt at Photography on Flickr

Jill Richardson
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