Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has introduced Federal legislation that would prohibit schools from selling soft drinks or “foods of minimal nutritional value” (read: snacks) during times when breakfast and lunch are served. It would also give the US Department of Agriculture the power to ban sodas and snacks outright on school grounds. The Boston Herald saw this coming, and editorialized that Leahy’s plan arose out of “good intentions, indeed. And we’re for good nutrition too. But surely the Agriculture Department, not to mention Congress, has more important things to do than to lay down mandates on when pupils may go to the soda machine and what the machine may contain.”
Leahy’s office issued a press release which claims that “sodas contribute to child obesity,” and repeats the flawed conclusions of a questionable study which claimed to connect soft drink consumption with childhood bone fractures. For more information on the war being waged against soda, check out our recent report, Hop on Pop.
