BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1829
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Date of Hearing: April 11, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 1829 (Bradford) - As Introduced: February 22, 2012
SUBJECT : Schools: National School Lunch Program.
SUMMARY : Requires school districts to disseminate information
regarding the nutritional content of lunches provided through
the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) commencing with the
2013-14 school year. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires school districts participating in the NSLP that
regularly disseminate school menu information online or in
printed form as of January 1, 2013 to present the following
nutrition information in a manner that permits parents and
pupils to access it while they access the daily school lunch
menu:
a) The total number of calories in each meal;
b) The total number of grams of saturated fat in each meal;
c) The total number of grams of protein in each meal;
d) The total number of carbohydrates in each meal; and,
e) The total number of milligrams of sodium in each meal.
2)Makes findings and declarations that there is an increase in
the number of overweight children in California and that
medical literature documents the severe health and economic
consequences of being overweight and obese; and, that parental
involvement in the NSLP can play a critical role in addressing
this statewide health concern.
3)Expresses legislative intent that parents be informed if their
school district has adopted guidelines to provide parents with
information about the nutritional content of meals served
through the NSLP.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to
ensure that the nutrition levels of meals served pursuant to
the National School Lunch Act be of the highest quality and
greatest nutritional value possible. (Education Code (EC)
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49590)
2)Requires each school district to provide each needy pupil one
nutritionally adequate, free or reduced-price meal during each
schoolday. (EC 49550)
3)Defines a "nutritionally adequate meal" as one that qualifies
for reimbursement under the federal child nutrition program
regulations. (EC 49553)
4)Requires the CDE to develop and maintain nutrition guidelines
for school lunches and breakfasts and for all food and
beverages sold on public school campuses. These guidelines
shall include recommendations for fat, saturated fat, and
cholesterol. (EC 49531.1)
5)Requires each school district or other public or private
nonprofit school or agency providing a school meal to meet
standards adopted by the Superintendent of Public Instruction
for what a "meal" is considered to be. (EC 49492)
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill is keyed non-fiscal, however, the
Assembly Appropriations Committee has requested to hear this
bill. If this bill is passed by the Assembly Education
Committee, it will be referred to the Committee on
Appropriations to consider the fiscal implications.
COMMENTS : This bill requires school districts participating in
the NSLP that regularly disseminate school menu information
online or in printed form to disseminate information regarding
the nutritional content of the lunches provided to students. It
requires school districts to provide details about the total
number of calories, carbohydrates, grams of saturated fat, grams
of protein, and milligrams of sodium in each meal. School
districts that do not provide school menu information either
online or in printed form as of January 1, 2013 would not be
required to comply with these requirements.
According to the author, the intent of this legislation is to
provide students and families with clear nutritional
information. It follows the same line of thought as SB 1420
(Padilla) from 2008, which required restaurant chains to provide
nutritional information about all food products on their menus.
By providing clear facts about the nutritional content in school
lunches, families will be better able to make healthy eating
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choices. This bill requires that nutrition information be
provided online or in print format for each school meal.
Currently, some districts such as Oakland Unified School
District provide nutrient averages for the meals provided during
a given month on the school lunch menu itself. This bill
requires school districts and specific school sites to make
these specific items of nutrition information available for
students and their families.
Federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. This bill comes
at the same time as a major overhaul of federal nutrition
standards for the NSLP. The federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids
Act of 2010, which was signed into law by President Obama in
December of 2010, makes the first significant changes to the
nutritional regulations over the NSLP since 1995. In January
2012, the United States Department of Agriculture released the
Final Rule Nutrition Standards for the National School Lunch and
School Breakfast Programs in accordance with the new federal
legislation. As part of the new regulations, schools are
required to serve food options that align with meal patterns
specifying acceptable quantities of different types of food. The
Institute of Medicine recently identified such an approach as a
method to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables
individuals eat while decreasing the level of saturated fat,
sodium and carbohydrates. As a result of the new meal patterns,
schools must provide students enough servings of the appropriate
food categories as required by the Final Rule Nutrition
Standards. These requirements are summarized in the table on the
next page:
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Summary of Nutrition Standards for the National School Lunch and
School Breakfast Programs.
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| |Breakfast Meal Pattern |Lunch Meal Pattern |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |Grades K-5 |Grades 6-8 |Grades 9-12 |Grades K-5 |Grades 6-8 |Grades 9-12 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Meal | Amount of Food Per Week (by serving) |
|Pattern | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
|Fruits | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 5 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Vegetables | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3.75 | 3.75 | 5 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Grains (oz) | 7-10 | 8-10 | 9-10 | 8-9 | 8-10 | 10-12 |
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
|Meats/Meat | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8-10 | 9-10 | 10-12 |
|Alternates | | | | | | |
|(oz) | | | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| | Daily Amount Based on the Average for a 5-day week |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Min-Max | 350-500 | 400-550 | 450-600 | 550-650 | 600-700 | 750-850 |
|Calories | | | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Saturated fat | < 10 | < 10 | < 10 | < 10 | < 10 | < 10 |
|(% of total | | | | | | |
|calories) | | | | | | |
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
|Milligrams of | d 430 | d 470 | d 500 | d 640 | d 710 | d 740 |
|Sodium | | | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Trans |Nutrition label or manufacturer specifications must |
|fats |indicate zero grams of trans fat per serving. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
(Source: United States Department of Agriculture. Food and
Nutrition Services. 2012.)
One question that arises with this new policy is whether or not
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the requirements of this bill will function effectively with the
new federal regulations. While this bill and the federal
regulations appear to have the same set of overarching goals,
there is also a significant difference between the structures of
the two. This bill focuses on calorie counting and providing
detailed nutritional information about each meal. The new
federal regulations apply a "food pattern" approach that sets up
a system based more on serving sizes and cups of food than on
the exact calorie count. It is unclear how much additional
effort and infrastructure would be required to include the
detailed information about each meal.
Implementation adjustments. This bill would require districts
and schools to calculate the nutrient information in each meal
and include such information in publications about menu
information. This would likely result in the need for more
individuals who are trained in nutrition and nutrition
information retrieving software such as NUTRIKIDS. It would also
lead school districts to purchase software packages such as
NUTRIKIDS that allow school menu planners to calculate exact
nutrition information about specific meals. These programs have
been valued at approximately $1725. Since many school cafeterias
are stepping away from standardized meal rotations in efforts to
diversify their meal offerings, these types of software programs
would be particularly necessary in order to update menu
information on a regular basis for school publications.
There also appear to be potential implementation obstacles in
providing accurate calorie counts for school meals. The bill
requires nutritional information for meals rather than
individual food components or weekly averages. Since many
cafeterias provide students with options such as salad bars,
multiple main entrees and different side dishes, on any given
day it may be difficult to provide accurate information. The
nutritional value of one student's school lunch may be entirely
different than another student's lunch based on the choices they
make.
Valuable information. According to the author, the target
audiences of this nutrition information are students and
families. The author states that while school lunches under the
NSLP meet specific federal standards, decisions on what food to
serve are made by local school food authorities. Because of
this, the author argues that providing this information to
students and their families would provide greater clarity and
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health information about the particular details of each school's
meal options.
This information would likely influence the decisions made by
students and their families. According to a 2009 American
Journal of Public Health report, calorie information on food
menus at restaurants had an impact on the overall calorie intake
of individuals. This result seems to indicate that the
availability of nutrition information was beneficial to general
public health and wellness. Making nutrition information about
school lunches available to students and their families would
likely generate a greater level of awareness about health and
nutrition for students and their families. This increased
awareness may help contribute to the decrease in the number of
obese students in California, which would reduce their risk for
major diseases and health issues.
This added nutrition information could, however, lead to some
unintended consequences. One could argue that if a particular
meal is high in calories, there could be peer pressure not to
eat the meal offered that day. In some cases, this peer
pressure could steer students toward healthier meal options, but
in other cases the peer pressure may encourage some students not
to eat at all. For example, students who are eligible for free
and reduced priced meals could be teased for eating the meal
that is perceived to be unhealthy, when that student may not
have a choice because they cannot afford to buy an alternative
meal instead. If such a student is afraid of being teased for
eating the NSLP meal, they may choose not to eat that day. The
committee should consider that while the bill seeks to give
students choice, some low-income students may only be able to
choose between the meal that is offered and no meal at all.
Finally, the author has indicated that he would like to amend
this bill to include the School Breakfast Program. In the
recently passed federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010
the Final Rule Nutrition Standards include meal pattern
requirements for both programs. Having this requirement for both
the NSLP and the School Breakfast Program would make these
requirements for all school meals. If this committee chooses to
pass this bill, staff recommends the bill to be amended to
include the School Breakfast Program so that nutrition
information is consistent across all meals that students receive
at school.
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Arguments in support. The American Academy of Pediatrics writes
"California legislation has already enacted menu labeling for
large chain restaurants, thus recognizing the importance of
spreading awareness of nutritional content and empowering
individuals to make informed decisions. As studies show that
parental involvement is key in targeting childhood obesity, it
follows that enabling parents to access the nutritional content
of their child's school menu will encourage healthier food
choices and would therefore be instrumental in effecting change.
In addition, the availability of school menu labels could prompt
discussion at home and at school and engage children in
examining and interpreting nutrition facts for themselves, thus
conferring the lifelong benefit of being an informed consumer
and exercising personal responsibility."
The California Medical Association (CMA) adds, "As strong
supporters of allowing people to make informed dietary choices,
CMA has long encouraged school cafeterias and restaurants,
including food service chains, to list nutritional information
on their menus that include, at a minimum, caloric information
by serving size. This information will help students and their
parents make informed choices in in what they or their children
eat at school; a lesson that can help them improve their eating
habits well into the future."
Arguments in opposition. The California Right to Life
Committee, Inc. writes that under this bill, "Parents will be
informed if their school district has adopted these guidelines
detailing calories, fat/protein/carbohydrate/sodium content of
each meal that is reimbursable. The local school districts will
have to provide this information through on-line or printed
contact with parents and guardians. This places another burden
on the local schools as well as on the parents. Will the parents
be asked to approve and authorize the child's menu? Will the
child be able to change the menu choice, if wished without
parents' approval?"
Prior legislation. AB 2686 (Jackson) from 2004, encouraged the
governing board of a school district participating in the NSLP
to disseminate information regarding the nutritional content of
lunches served as part of the program. The bill was vetoed with
the following message:
This bill is unnecessary because school districts
currently have the ability to implement a school lunch
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program that offers more low-fat options along with
nutritional posting without the enactment of this measure.
I have long been committed to the physical health and
fitness for kids and adults alike for many years and am
concerned that childhood obesity rates have increased
dramatically. Every child should be encouraged to pursue
a healthy and active lifestyle. However, simply providing
parents and students with nutritional information can only
make a marginal change in behavior, unless it is coupled
with more enforceable mechanisms.
The State should tackle important child obesity and health
issues in a comprehensive manner, instead of the piecemeal
approach to regulating nutrition in schools, as this bill
contemplates.
SB 1420 (Padilla), Chapter 600, Statutes of 2008, required
restaurants to provide nutritional information, including the
number of calories, the total number of grams of
carbohydrates, the total number of grams of saturated fat, and
the total number of milligrams of sodium for each menu item.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
AFL-CIO
California Medical Association
California Pan-Ethnic Health Network
San Francisco Unified School District
Opposition
California Right to Life Committee, Inc.
Analysis Prepared by : Mark Murphy and Chelsea Kelley / ED. /
(916) 319-2087
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