Soft drinks out for LA fatties

2002-08-27 20:52

Los Angeles - In a move expected to set a precedent around the country, the school board of Los Angeles was set Tuesday to ban the sale of soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi from schools throughout the city.

With 748 000 students in 677 schools, the Los Angeles School district trails only New York as the largest school district in the country.

Each school typically earns $50 000 during a three-year period for an exclusive retail contract with a soft-drinks manufacturers, excluding the $5 000 a month they take in from sales.

These earnings are a crucial resource for cash-strapped schools in the city, but many experts now believe the cost is too high.

A US department of agriculture study from the mid-1990s showed that 12 to 17-year-olds get 11% of their calories from soft drinks. The centres for disease control and prevention reports 13% of children are now classified as seriously obese.

Children's Hospital in Boston published a study last year which showed that children who consume one extra sugar-sweetened drink daily increase their chances of becoming obese by 60%.

A majority of Los Angeles school board members say they support the ban, which will prevent all schools from selling carbonated drinks during school hours starting in January 2004. Other beverages, like water, milk, or drinks with at least 50% fruit juice and sports drinks containing less than 42g of sugar per serving would still be permitted.

So far, only the school district of Oakland has passed a similar ban, but experts predict a greater influence from the Los Angeles action.

"It's going to set a national trend," Francesca de la Rosa of the centre for food and justice at Occidental College's Urban and Environmental Policy Institute told the Los Angeles Times. "People will say, if you can do it at LAUSD, you can do it anywhere." - Sapa-DPA

- SAPA