Schools reconsider food offerings

SNOHOMISH — Ah, the middle school vending machine, so full of color and calories.

Alex Fischer, a seventh-grader at Valley View Middle School, recites its offerings by rote: Snickers, Milky Way, Skittles and "basically all the chocolate you can find in the store, plus Gummi Bears."

Kids often bypass lunch to spend $2 on candy, he said. "They’d rather spend money on junk food than something nutritious because it tastes better."

Fischer and other Valley View students, parents and teachers are joining other schools across the nation to debate the food that is being dispensed at schools. They’re getting a lesson in economics as well as nutrition.

Sales from Valley View’s soft-drink machine bring in $3,000 to $3,500 a year, assistant principal Dean Neary said. The Parents Club candy machine sales add even more, about $4,500 a year.

The candy money helps pay for field trips, music and sports programs, classroom computers and emergency supplies for earthquakes and other disasters. Soft-drink money goes for similar school projects.

"If we’re teaching nutrition and healthy lifestyles in classes and they walk over to a vending machine with candy and pop, what … is the overall message we’ve sent?" asks Theresa Fay Hutchison, a Snohomish School District nurse who sits on a committee that is reconsidering the school’s vending machines.

"If they want quick and easy … let’s have healthy choices in the vending machines," she said.

Fischer, a member of the school’s nutrition and health committee, said, "I would like to see, instead of candy machines, a refrigerator full of yogurt."

Valley View joins middle schools in Olympia and Ellensburg as the only schools in the state to receive $1,000 grants to study student fitness and nutrition. The grants were awarded by the Seattle-based Children’s Alliance, working with the University of Washington’s Center for Public Health Nutrition.

At Valley View, groups reviewed health education, physical education and physical activity, nutrition, health promotion and community involvement. They will write up recommended nutritional standards that can be used to regulate food and beverages sold at the school.

If approved by the principal, the guidelines would go into effect in the fall. Ultimately, they could be adopted by the school board as a districtwide policy.

The Snohomish School District isn’t the only school district in Snohomish County reconsidering the nutritional value of food sold at schools.

An Everett School District committee of students, parents and administrators studying the snack issue may propose a districtwide policy on what foods can be sold on campuses. Any policy would require school board approval.

And the state Legislature has asked the superintendent of public instruction and the Health Department to develop a statewide policy on the nutritional content of food and drinks sold in schools.

However, schools have come to rely on the money junk foods generate.

The percentage of state money to fund public schools has declined over the decades, Neary said, leaving schools ever more dependent on local taxpayers and other sources of revenue.

"Schools are like everything else," he said. "You’ve got to find creative ways to make money."

Vending companies help fill the gap, offering schools deals with up-front money and a percentage of sales in exchange for having their products in vending machines.

At Valley View, the school’s sign with its Viking mascot and reader board is part of this largesse. The Vikings are sponsored by Coca-Cola.

In exchange for a six-year contract, Coke agreed to pay the school $4,000 upfront, Neary said — enough to pay for the sign and its installation about eight years ago.

"This building is 25 years old, and we don’t have a scoreboard on the (athletic) field," Neary said. "That’s how you get those little extras."

If the current vending machine offerings go away, "how are we going to raise revenue from those machines?" principal Nancy Rhoades said.

For the district, the financial implications loom even larger.

The Snohomish School District received $56,000 in vending machine revenues during the 2002-2003 school year, spokeswoman J. Marie Merrifield said.

Under a five-year contract that expires this year, Pepsi provided Snohomish High School with a $43,500 contract, plus commissions. It included $26,000 for buying and installing an electronic reader board outside the school.

Each year, the high school also gets $500 for software, $1,000 worth of promotional products, $500 in sports beverages and a $500 student scholarship.

Yet, changing what’s offered in school vending machines doesn’t have to mean a trip to the financial dunk tank.

Enid Hohn, food services director of the Vista Unified School District in Vista, Calif. , said her school district received national attention after deciding to pull junk food out of vending machines three years ago.

Hohn bet more than her reputation on replacing vending machine sodas and candy with healthier alternatives. She promised the Vista High School principal a $10,000, upfront "signing bonus."

It was a guarantee that the new items would bring in more money than the $9,000 generated from candy and soft-drink sales.

Out went the empty calories.

In went bagels and cream cheese, Cheese-Its, Pop-Tarts, beef jerky, roasted almonds, dried apricots, crackers, pretzels, trail mix, muffins, granola bars, salads, bottled water, juices and sports drinks.

"For the first month of school, I was there eight hours a day, schlepping products around, interacting with the kids," Hohn said. "I didn’t want any glitches where the kids or teachers could say it didn’t work."

After a few days, teachers began telling her: "I’ve got to look at these machines. It’s all the kids are talking about."

During the first year of the changeover, the 2001-2002 school year, vending machine sales brought in nearly $17,000. The next year, that climbed to $22,000. This year, the tally is expected to hit $32,000.

The experiment was so successful that last year Hohn was invited to Harvard University to speak at a health forum on obesity.

So why was she so sure her experiment in nutrition would work?

Taking a page from marketing experts, Hohn offered students free samples of snacks she was thinking of offering. She asked if they’d buy a product and, if so, for how much.

Both the vending machine offerings and their prices were based on what the kids told her.

"I didn’t go all the way to the other side with tofu and soy nuts," Hohn said. "I tried to sell something that the kids would eat or have in their cupboards at home."

Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.

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