Competition from fast food joints leaves few options
Despite recent publicity surrounding a lawsuit against McDonald’s and three other fast food outlets for making a man obese, local high schools will rely on the same fast food purveyors to feed their students.
At Santa Monica High School, for example, the school’s cafeteria offers hamburgers from McDonald’s and Taco Bell burritos.
In Malibu — which shares its school district with Santa Monica — the pizza comes from Pizza Hut, while Santa Monica High has switched to Papa John’s pizza because students prefer it over Domino’s. And it all comes with the blessing of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board.
Last week, fast food vendors and soda distributors were approved by the school board to serve students —mainly at the high school level — hot lunches and cold beverages in the district’s cafeterias.
Year-long contracts were awarded to Papa John’s for $50,000; McDonald’s for $33,000; Taco Bell for $33,000 and Pizza Hut for $15,000.
The district also awarded a $30,000 contract for cookies; $23,000 for bagels; $10,000 for a “Slushpuppy” machine and a $6,000 contract for frozen yogurt.
Administrators say selling fast food at the high school is an economic necessity. If students don’t buy it from the district, they’ll buy it down the street, administrators insist.
“At a school like Santa Monica, you have an open campus where students can leave for lunch and they are an older crowd with sophisticated tastes,” said Rodney Taylor, the district’s director of nutrition services.
“Close my campus tomorrow and I would be a lot braver about what we serve,” he added. “But we have 3,400 kids to feed in one 30-minute period, and there’s no way we can do that, so the campus has to remain open.”
“Close my campus tomorrow and I would be a lot braver about what we serve.” — — RODNEY TAYLOR Director of Nutrition, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District
By state law, schools must provide hot lunches. But the law doesn’t say the cooking has to be in-house. Further, the district competes with nearby restaurants — mostly fast food outlets — for the students’ business.
If students don’t eat on campus, the district loses out on badly-needed revenue, Taylor said.
“If we don’t provide it, we can’t compete,” he explained. “If we don’t sell it, we would take a financial loss on our meals programs, which would then affect other school programs.”
To the suggestion that schools might literally be selling out their students’ health for purely economic reasons, Taylor is frank.
“I’m as much a nutritionist as anyone, but I’m also a realist. I have to run a business, too.”
Operating snack and soda vending machines also has proven to be a popular way for some departments to raise money. Vending machines operated by the Samohi athletic department raised $30,000 last year to buy athletic equipment and new uniforms.
“How do you replace that money, which is used for good purposes, if you ban snack foods?” Taylor asked.
Nutritionists across the country say too much fast food leads to obesity, malnutrition and other heath problems in teenagers. Often the issue goes unnoticed by many school districts.
A recent lawsuit by a 290-pound man, Caesar Barber of New York, alleged that he had been misled into believing fast food red meat was healthy. The man, who now has a host of health problems, is making a claim which parallels successful tobacco cases. It’s based on how much the McDonalds and Burger Kings of the world may alter the fat content of their meals in order to sell more of them.
Pam Anderson, a nutritionist at Santa Monica-UCLA Hospital, said fast food at school cafeterias has become common.
“It’s kind of sad because a lot of kids are getting fast food for dinner, too,” she said. “It would be kind of nice if their lunch could be a better nutritious meal.”
Andersen said she understands the difficulties of open-campus schools, which is why the burden falls on parents to ensure their children are eating at least one healthy meal a day. She also advises parents to teach their children moderation and warns against falling into the “supersized” trap.
“Eat with moderation, and eat smaller portions,” she advised. “If you are going to get a hamburger and fries for lunch, supplement it with carrots.”
Santa Monica is far ahead of other school districts in the state on serving nutritious meals to its elementary and middle school students. For nearly ten years, snack foods and carbonated beverages have not been sold in any of those schools, though children are allowed to bring them from home.
Only last year did the California state Senate pass a law establishing those same rules statewide, though the law will not go into effect unless it is funded by the Legislature, which is having trouble passing a balanced state budget because of a $23 billion deficit.
Taylor, who is leaving the school district next week to take a job in the Riverside School District, has been credited with reviving the popularity of the district’s salad bars by taking students to the Santa Monica Farmers Market to learn about fresh vegetables and fruits.
Before the school district began operating the farmers market program in 1997, about 30 students would use the salad bars, but now Taylor said hundreds of students use them daily.
“Those kids are getting the maximum amount of fruits and vegetables they are supposed to be getting in one day in one meal,” he said. “And that’s a good sign of things to come.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 17, 2002. Read the original PDF.