Michelle Obama to unveil food marketing limits for schools

First lady Michelle Obama will unveil a proposal Tuesday that would ban marketing junk food and sodas in schools — an unusually aggressive position for the administration that could draw the ire of school districts, food companies and conservatives. Schools would no longer be able to house vending machines that sport images of their flagship sodas, have posters promoting unhealthy food and drinks or use cups in cafeterias that market high-calorie beverages, among other forms of promotion, according to administration officials. The proposal — part of an updated school wellness policy crafted by the Department of Agriculture — would require marketing of all food and drinks to fall in line with the same healthier standards that are expected to be required of foods sold during the 2014-15 school year. Both sets of measures, which go beyond the new school lunch and breakfast requirements, stem from the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. The updated standards for foods sold in schools, which have yet to be finalized, would require snack foods, including those in vending machines, to meet at least one of the following requirements: be a whole-grain-rich grain product; have as the main ingredient a fruit, a vegetable, a dairy product or a protein food; be a combination of food that contains at least one-quarter of a cup of fruits or vegetables; or contain 10 percent of the Daily Value of nutrients like calcium, vitamin D or dietary fiber. The foods also would have to meet calorie, fat, sodium and sugar limits. For beverages, elementary and middle schools are mostly limited to water, unflavored and low-fat milk, or 100 percent fruit and vegetable juice. High school students will be able to buy a certain amount of low- or no-calorie beverages...more

Nanny State, Nanny State.  Prediction:  fewer kids will eat the school lunches and their nutritional intake will decline, not improve.