Community calls for healthier snack choices in Mat-Su School District

June 7, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - A growing list of organizations is rallying around a proposal to kick junk food out of public schools.

Valley Hospital's chief executive officer, Norman Stephens, sent a letter to Mat-Su Borough School District Chief School Administrator Bob Doyle, lauding Doyle's proposal to increase the nutritional value of foods sold in school vending machines.

"You will be setting a new benchmark by offering more nutritional vending machine options for children," Stephens wrote.

The 12,000-member Alaska Parent Teacher Association also sent a letter to Mat-Su School Board members, urging them to put healthy food in the schools.

Those same concerns were echoed by Hans Neidig, executive director of Valley Healthy Communities Program. VHCP is a nonprofit organization that addresses, among other things, fitness and nutrition.

At the school board meeting Wednesday, June 1, Neidig told board members that obesity is increasing at alarming rates in the United States and abroad.

"We have an issue, globally and nationally," he said. "It's not all just going to be taken care of at the school district. It needs to be addressed at home. It needs to be addressed in other ways in the community. This is a reasonable first step and I think it will make a difference in our community."

Doyle said the district wants to set up a districtwide master contract for vending machines. Under the master contract, all proceeds would be shared and if individual schools lose revenue, they would be reimbursed. Doyle said the move to healthier foods will be more in line with what the district teaches in its schools' health classes.

"It doesn't make sense to have a whole line of vending machines sitting out there as they come out of the classroom door," he said, referring to machines loaded with pop, candy and other high-fat, high-sugar foods.

The school board will next address this issue at its June 15 school board meeting, at Palmer High School, starting at 6 p.m.

Contact Joel Davidson at 352-2266, or joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.