Put Down the Cupcake:
New Ban Hits School Bake Sales
New Requirements May Squeeze Out Gooey
Fundraising Fare; Fat Standard
By Stephanie Armour in
the Wall Street Journal
At Chapman School in
Nebraska, resourceful students hawk pizza and cookie dough to raise money for school
supplies, field trips and an eighth-grade excursion to Washington. They peddle
chocolate bars to help fund the yearbook.
But the sales won't be
so sweet starting this fall. Campus bake sales—a mainstay of school
fundraisers—are going on a diet. A federal law that aims to curb childhood
obesity means that, in dozens of states, bake sales must adhere to nutrition
requirements that could replace cupcakes and brownies with fruit cups and
granola bars.
Jeff Ellsworth,
principal of the kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Chapman, Neb.,
isn't quite sure how to break the news to the kids. "The chocolate bars
are a big seller," said Mr. Ellsworth.
The restrictions that
took effect in July stem from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed
by first lady Michelle
Obama and her "Let's
Move!" campaign. The law overhauled nutrition standards affecting more
than 30 million children. Among the changes: fatty french fries were out, while
baked sweet potato fries were deemed to be fine.
The law also required
the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set standards for all food and beverages
sold during the school day, which includes vending machines, snack carts and
daytime fundraisers. It allowed for "infrequent" fundraisers, and
states were allowed to decide how many bake sales they would have that didn't
meet nutrition standards.
Without state-approved
exemptions, any treats sold would have to meet calorie, sodium, fat and other
requirements. The law permits states to fine schools that don't comply.
Forget about buttery,
salty popcorn, for instance. Kernels sold on site during the day must contain
no more than 230 milligrams of sodium per serving until 2016, when it drops
even lower. No more than 35% of calories in an item can come from total fat.
A graphic put out by
the USDA shows where some snacks stand.
Six chocolate sandwich
cookies at 286 calories would be out, but a 4-ounce fruit cup with 100% juice
at 68 calories would make the cut. Also out: a large doughnut at 242 calories
and a 1.6 oz. chocolate bar with 235 calories.
Homemade fare is more
challenging to measure, schools say.
Each state can mandate
the number of daytime fundraisers held each year that buck the nutrition
requirements. But so far, 32 states have opted to stay strictly in the healthy
zone, according to a draft report from the School Nutrition Association, which
said the final number could change before the school year begins.
That means students in
those states, which range from Alabama to California to Texas, can't sell fatty
or sugary fare that doesn't meet the federal requirements.
"For some
districts, this will be a huge change," said Julia Bauscher, president of
the School Nutrition Association and director of school and community nutrition
services at Jefferson County Public School in Louisville, Ky. "There's a
lot of fear among school food directors that we will have to be the food
police."
The Obama
administration said it has provided states flexibility with the rules, which
cover schools that participate in the federal school meals programs. "We
defer to the states to make decisions that made sense to them," said Sam
Kass, executive director of Let's Move!
Tennessee will allow
schools to sell food items that tip the federal scales for 30 days each year.
"Schools have
relied on these types of sales as revenue streams for sports, cheering clubs,
marching bands," said David Sevier, deputy executive director of the
Tennessee Board of Education. "We get the obesity issue, but we don't want
to jerk this out from under the kids."
In advance of the law,
some schools had already banned students from a near-sacred activity: setting
up tables to sell boxes of Girl Scout cookies during the day. There are also
those that have replaced food-centric fundraisers with calorie-free events such
as wrapping-paper sales, pie-throwing events and bowl-a-thons. Others have
prohibited homemade fare in favor of processed items where the nutritional
information is calculated and displayed.
At least 12 states
have also already adopted limits on bake-sale foods on their own—providing a
taste of what's to come for hundreds of schools nationwide.
"We used to have
a carnival with a cake walk, now we do a book walk," said Adam Drummond,
principal of Lincoln Elementary School in Huntington, Ind. "The students
get to pick a book."
Child obesity has more
than quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years, according to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. Of children 6-11, in 2012, 18% were obese.
That is up from 7% in 1980, according to the CDC.
Texas has had
nutrition requirements since at least 2010 that cover fundraisers, but had
allowed campuses to have three events a year during the school day where
students could sell candy or other restricted items. This year, it didn't adopt
such exemptions.
"Some don't
follow the spirit and set up bake sales right after the bell rings," said
Christine Jovanovic, of Austin, who is a member of the parent-teacher
association at Canyon Vista Middle School and Westwood High School.
The result of the new
requirements may be more processed-food products.
"We use prepackaged
food because it has to have nutritional requirements posted," said Keli
Gill, president-elect of the Arkansas PTA, where the state has had nutrition
standards for bake sales for a few years. "Items like apples are
perishable and don't last as long, so we don't want to waste money and have it
go bad on us."
Schools are also
grappling with how to monitor food sales so as not to end up in the penalty
box.
Davis High School in
Kaysville, Utah, was fined more than $15,000 during the 2012-2013 school year for
selling certain snacks and carbonated beverages near the lunch area while meals
were served, which isn't allowed under federal requirements. The Utah
Department of Education conducted on-site visits and found the infractions. The
fine was reduced to $1,297, according to Christopher Williams, a district
spokesman.
Said Tennessee's Mr.
Sevier: "It's not like we're going to have a brigade of black helicopters
coming in to check."
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