At last, the US is taking steps to wean its schoolchildren off the sugary drinks normally peddled from school vending machines.
On 3 May, major US soft drinks companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Cadbury Schweppes, along with the American Beverage Association, volunteered to phase out drinks containing more than 100 calories per can from school vending machines by 2010. Instead, 35 million children across the US will be offered more alternatives, including bottled water and fruit and vegetable juices.
“This really is a ground-breaking agreement,” says Robert Eckel, president of the American Heart Association, which joined forces with the William J. Clinton Foundation to broker the voluntary deal.
Advertisement
The move was welcomed by Howard Taras, professor of paediatric health at the University of California, San Diego. In January 2004, he chaired a committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommended restricting sugary drink sales. “It’s very positive,” he says.
But Arne Astrup at The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Frederiksberg, Denmark, says he would have preferred fruit juices to be excluded as well, since they can also contain high levels of sugar. “We don’t know the impact of fruit juices on obesity,” he says. In 2002, Astrup showed that people who added sugar-sweetened drinks to their diet gained 2.5 kilograms on average in 10 weeks, while those who drank diet drinks tended to lose weight.
