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Beverage Industry Pulls Soda From Elementary Schools

Consumer Groups Press to Expand Policy to Middle and High Schools

August 17, 2005
With child obesity rates at epidemic levels and growing political momentum for regulating students' access to junk food, the soda bottlers have seen the writing on the wall. The bottlers' trade association is urging bottlers to pull sugar-laden soft drinks from elementary school vending machines, stocking only water and 100 percent juice instead.

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Under the industry group's new policy, middle schools would get "nutritious and/or lower calorie beverages," including, 100 percent juice, sports drinks, no-calorie soft drinks, and low-calorie juice drinks. No full-calorie soft drinks or full-calorie juice drinks with five percent or less juice would be available until after school.

High schools would offer "a variety of beverage choices," incuding bottled water, 100 percent juice, sports drinks, and juice drinks. No more than 50 percent of the vending selections will be soft drinks.

The American Beverage Association's president, Susan K. Neely, announced the new policy in a speech to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) annual meeting in Seattle.

The announcement got a qualified endorsement from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), one of the most aggressive consumer groups calling for a change. CSPI called it "an encouraging step from an industry that, up to now, has thwarted angry parents who want to get soda out of their kids’ schools."

"The soda industry has aggressively, and shamefully, taken advantage of the precarious financial position of many public school systems. And, frankly, too many school administrators have been willing to close budget gaps at the expense of their students’ health," said CSPI Nutrition Policy Director Margo G. Wootan.

CSPI said the no-soda policy should be extended to middle and high schools as well.

"Given that poor diet and obesity are problems among teens, soda also has no place in America’s high schools and middle schools, which are much bigger markets for soda companies than elementary schools," Wootan said.

Neely's group 20 companies that comprise approximately 85 percent of school vending beverage sales by bottlers.

“Healthy and active kids can certainly enjoy soft drinks and juice drinks, but we understand that parents want more control over what their younger children consume in school and we want to support them with this policy,” Neely said.

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