By Carrie Seidman
Tribune Reporter

A vending machine burrito and a package of mini-doughnuts.

A bag of Doritos and a Pepsi.

A slice of pizza and a Gatorade.

Pale-blue cotton candy.

These are a few of the selections students were making during a recent lunch hour at Sandia High School.

"It's all junk food," said Katie Kauffman, 16, who, with her friend Erin Stitt, 17, was opting not to eat at all rather than wait in long lines for "greasy, cold pizza."

"The few good things they have you have to wait in line forever for, and they're expensive," added Stitt.

The carefully prepared sack lunch from home and the cooked-from-scratch school "hot lunch" are scarce these days on most city high school campuses.

Driven by their own shrinking budgets and students' changing taste demands, high schools are frequently selling out to commercial interests for a profit.

"We try to look at the health aspect and we offer some pretty good choices," said Bob Hennig, Sandia's principal.

"But mostly it's based on what the kids want. If they want to buy a candy bar and a Coke, they do. That's part of the maturing process - learning to make good choices."

Sandia, the only school in the Albuquerque Public Schools system to decline participation in the National School Lunch Program, is not alone in offering students fast food choices.

Since APS went to closed campuses for all students but seniors seven years ago, all the high schools and many of the middle schools have provided snack bars and vending machines stocked with sugary sweets, greasy chips and caffeinated beverages.

Elementary schools do not have vending machines in areas where children have access.

Under the U.S. Department of Agriculture lunch program, schools must ban sodas and foods of minimal nutritional value from the cafeteria during breakfast and lunch periods to receive reimbursements.

But schools easily escape the USDA restrictions by locating snack bars and vending machines outside of the cafeteria or having timers on the machines located in the cafeterias.

School fund-raising groups that sell items like cotton candy, candy apples or giant candy bars also set up outside the restricted area.

The practice is alarming considering the newest statistics on child obesity.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey released last month, 15 percent of American children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight, triple the rate in 1980.

Among Mexican-American and black adolescents, the figure is 24 percent.

During the same period, U.S. spending on hospital costs related to childhood obesity has tripled and Type II diabetes, which used to affect mostly adults, is now appearing in children as young as 8 years old.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat, is currently co-sponsoring two pieces of legislation that address school nutrition reform. One, introduced in 2001, is a proposal to ban sodas and candy from being sold or given out anywhere on school property during breakfast or lunch. The other, proposed this year, is a broad bill aimed at reducing childhood obesity through increased funding for nutritional research and education. Neither, Bingaman admitted, has much likelihood of being passed anytime soon.

"Both bills have bi-partisan support in Congress, but, very frankly, we've got to have the administration's support," Bingaman said. "And they have not indicated support to this point."

In lieu of a legislative mandate, John Lankford, a state Board of Education member and a former school teacher from Roswell, last month asked the board to recommend specific action on school nutritional reform. Though the board voted to take no action, the publicity Lankford generated has brought renewed attention to the subject - and not necessarily positive.

"I had 20 principals calling me the next day and saying, `What are you doing?'" Lankford said. "But do we really want to raise money that way?"

For many principals, the profit on snacks and vending machine purchases represents a substantial source of income, used to offset budget cuts. The bulk of that income is from vending machine soft drink sales, which can provide upward of $50,000 a year at local high schools. That's a figure most APS principals find hard to pass up.

Yet Ben Chavez, principal at Washington Middle School, banned soft drink sales as part of a school restructuring two years ago. There is just one machine on the school campus, and it is stocked only with 100 percent fruit juices and water. His decision was made on both ethical and logical grounds.

"You put a 20-ounce Dr Pepper in a 90-pound body and two things happen," Chavez said. "They have to go to the bathroom and they're full of caffeine."

Chavez said classroom interruptions (for bathroom visits) and disruptions have substantially decreased since the policy was instituted. Grades have also risen.

"It's difficult to come up with an ethical explanation for junk food without bringing in the money," he said. "The decision is based on money. They're willing to sacrifice instructional minutes and the health of the child."

The funds go into each principal's activities account and are disbursed at the principal's discretion. That principals cling dearly to these profits also makes it difficult for the district to institute changes, said James Jordan, director of Food Services at APS.

Jordan said he struggles to provide students with appealing, nutritious choices and still make his budget on meager federal reimbursements, "but it's hard to compete with a candy bar and a Coke."

And since those items are usually available just around the corner from the cafeteria lunch line, APS ends up providing many of the same foods through their snack bars to stay competitive.

"We're one of the biggest hypocritical departments," Jordan admitted. "We have to compete with the principals to keep our program alive."

The problem, Jordan said, is most pronounced in the high schools, where lunch hour is "primarily to socialize; eating is secondary."

As long as quick, non-nutritional choices are available, he says, children will take that option rather than standing in a long lunch line that also has the stigma of being "the poor kids' lunch."

However, Jordan said he is more than willing to work with principals and communities that would like to change the choices available.

"Our take is that we're willing to work as a team to change the approach," he said. "There's so much more that we can do. But the bottom line is the bottom line."

Soft drink manufacturers and snack providers have also indicated a willingness to work with individual schools on what products they place in school vending machines.

Gabriella Pacheco, nutrition coordinator at APS, said the district is currently formulating a standard nutrition policy that may force some changes. She hopes the policy will go to the school board for approval next spring and be instituted at the beginning of the 2003-04 school year.

"But the responsibility is not just on the schools," said Pacheco, who has two sons, 14 and 18. "It's on the community and the parents, as well. It has to be a collaborative effort."

In fact, there are a number of schools in the state where just such a collaborative effort has made a significant difference. Most are smaller schools with a more manageable student population.

"In this case, size matters," said Jordan.

At Alameda Middle School in Santa Fe, vending machines are locked up until the school day is over, and the lunch line always features a salad station and whole fresh fruit. Posters in the school cafeteria declare the school a "Junk-Free Zone" and the snack bar offers fruit rolls rather than candy bars.

"We haven't gotten to where we'd like to go," said Sherry Coopwood, Alameda's principal, "but it's a start. Maybe if we do it well enough, by the time they get to high school, the kids themselves will make better choices."

In the Taos district, a community-based effort that began two years ago has resulted in total eradication of sodas and candy in the school, a broadening of choices in the lunch room and a wide array of healthy items (granola bars, yogurt, baked chips) in the snack bar.

"We have to start changing the taste buds of our kids," said Mary Ann McCann, director of the student nutrition program for Taos Municipal Schools and legislative chair for the New Mexico School Food Services Association. "We have to model healthy choices."

Those healthy choices have been less visible over the past two decades. More working mothers and single parents translated into fewer family dinners, more fast food and less emphasis on balanced meals.

Societal changes have also produced school lunch menus that reflect children's changing tastes, with pizza, chicken nuggets and fries replacing the meatloaf and mashed potatoes of the past.

"It doesn't do you any good if it all goes in the trash," said Jordan in defense. "We try to make it both popular and nutritious."

Food services is currently working on many fronts to increase student participation in the lunch program. Ideas include redesigning lunch rooms to look more like mall food courts, offering more choices, altering menus, even changing the color of lunch trays.

Ultimately, a change may be forced by taxpayers facing the heavy cost of insurance bills for unhealthy, overweight children. Children who develop Type II diabetes and remain overweight will die an average of 17-27 years earlier than children without the disease, according to the American Diabetes Association.

"It's estimated we'll spend $117 billion on obesity and diabetes down the road," said Blanche Harrison, former nutrition educator and training coordinator for the state of New Mexico. "Eventually that will get people's attention.

"But meanwhile, we'll have lost a lot of kids along the way."

Lunchtime How much nutritional value is in your teen's lunch? Here is a side-by-side evaluation of two types of lunches typically available on school campuses. Figures are based on guidelines that suggest a 3,500-calorie diet for teen boys, 2,600 for teen girls. Percentages are the portion of daily requirement.

Cafeteria lunch

Hamburger on wheat bun, slice of cheese, slice of iceberg lettuce and tomato, baked french fries, apple, nonfat milk and orange juice.

Calories: 664

Protein: 22 percent

Carbohydrates: 48 percent

Fat: 30 percent

Dietary fiber: 7.5 grams

Sugar: 49 grams

Calcium: 560 milligrams

Iron: 3.8 milligrams

Junk-food lunch

Three-ounce bag of cheese puffs, king-size chocolate bar and a cola.

Calories: 1,176

Protein: 5 percent

Carbohydrates: 51 percent

Fat: 44 percent

Dietary fiber: 5.8 grams

Sugar: 98 grams

Calcium: 167 milligrams

Iron: 2.8 milligrams

Source: Carol Koprowski, assistant professor at University of Southern California's Department of preventive medicine and a registered dietitian.

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