Skip to main content

Boston students ponder slimmer pickings in vending machines

Boston.com :
When high school student Shirley Gomez heard the news yesterday, she froze, widening her eyes and gaping in disbelief.

If the Boston School Committee adopts the new nutrition policy proposed yesterday, Gomez' midmorning chocolate-chip cookies could be replaced by granola bars. Her gummy bears dumped for raisins. And her syrupy-sweet red fruit juice axed for vitamin-fortified soy milk.

''No way. They can't do that," said Gomez, as she and her friends made their way to the Burger King next door to Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester. ''If I wanted that kind of food, I could take it from my refrigerator at home. Why do I need to buy it at school?"

Joining a nationwide effort to curb childhood obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases, Boston school officials yesterday proposed substituting healthier foods for the high-fat and high-sugar beverages and snacks now sold on school grounds. School committee members, who praised the suggested changes during the board meeting, will review the new policy in two weeks.

The approximately 130 vending machines in Boston public schools are stocked with a variety of high-fat fare: potato chips, brownies, cupcakes, and ice cream. Beverages include high-sugar sport drinks, iced tea, and juice.

If a new policy is approved, all those items will be banned in September.
''I guess I won't be eating lunch, then,' said freshman Tanisha Gray, who usually plunks about $1.50 in change for Doritos and fruit juice during lunch. ''You'd get more money from the vending machines with real snacks.'

Sherrel Stokes, 15, and Akeem Brown, 14, said they worry what the move could do for their image.

''Nobody eats bananas or apples for lunch -- nobody,' said Stokes, folding her hands across her chest.

''Who's going to walk around school eating an apple?' scoffed Brown."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

At USDA, the Mouse Is in the House

(washingtonpost.com) : "Employees at the Department of Agriculture's main cafeteria were just sitting down to lunch on Friday when security guards ordered everyone in the huge eatery to leave. Al Qaeda? Bomb scare? No. Mouse droppings. The D.C. Department of Health closed the cafeteria for failing to pass inspection. Yes, the USDA, home to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the meat and poultry inspectors -- the agency that is part of the federal system for protecting the nation's food supply, was in violation of the D.C. Health Code. There were several citations, according to the inspection report, including: 'water leaking excessively' in the ceiling, employees not wearing hair restraints, and inadequate cleaning of the inside of ice machines, cabinets, surfaces and equipment. The biggest problem, however, seemed to be mouse droppings found everywhere -- in the dry storage room, by the salad bar, behind the ovens, near the serving line, ...
BW Online | March 1, 2004 | Software : "As Stephen and Deepa emerge this summer from graduate school -- one in Pittsburgh, the other in Bombay -- they'll find that their decisions of a half-decade ago placed their dreams on a collision course. The Internet links that were being pieced together at the turn of the century now provide broadband connections between multinational companies and brainy programmers the world over. For Deepa and tens of thousands of other Indian students, the globalization of technology offers the promise of power and riches in a blossoming local tech industry. But for Stephen and his classmates in the U.S., the sudden need to compete with workers across the world ushers in an era of uncertainty. Will good jobs be waiting for them when they graduate? 'I might have been better served getting an MBA,' Stephen says."