An editedversion of this article is published as:
NestleM. Soft drink “pouring rights”:marketing empty calories. Public HealthReports 2000;115:308-319. CopyrightOxford University Press, 2000.
SOFT DRINK “POURING RIGHTS”:MARKETING EMPTY CALORIES
By
MarionNestle, PhD, MPH
Department of Nutrition and Food Studies
New YorkUniversity
35 W. 4thStreet, 10th Floor
New York,NY 10012-1172
Telephone:212-998-5595
FAX:212-995-4194
Email:marion.nestle@nyu.edu
As part of an effort to promote healthand counteract the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents, the most recentversion of U.S. Public Health Service objectives for improving health, HealthyPeople 2010, calls for an increase in “the proportion of children andadolescents aged 6 to 19 years whose intake of meals and snacks at schoolscontributes proportionally to good overall dietary quality.”[1] As the accompanying text explains, today’s students have “increased foodoptions” at school. Although the U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires federally-subsidized school mealprograms to meet established nutritional standards and dietary guidelines, suchstandards do not apply to foods sold outside of the official food servicecafeteria in school snack bars, stores, or vending machines. The quality of the “competitive” foods soldoutside of the cafeteria has long been a source of concern to nutritionists andschool food service directors as they often are higher in fat, sugar, andsodium than is desirable, and are consumed by students instead of the morenutritious foods provided by federally-supported school meal programs.[2],[3],[4] Thus, one purpose of this particular objective is to establish anenvironment in schools that will encourage “a good overall diet” and,therefore, contribute to learning readiness as well as to short- and long-termdisease prevention and health promotion.
Left unstated in the rationale for thisobjective, but clearly underlying it, are comments about the currentfood environment in schools. Healthprofessionals who do not presently live with school-age children may be unawareof the increasing intrusiveness of food commercialism into schools in recentyears. As this viewpoint will explain,food companies view school children as an attractive marketing opportunity, anduse every possible means to promote their products to this young,impressionable, and captive audience. Soft drink companies, for example, are especially creative in thebreadth of methods developed to promote their products to children both in andout of school (see Table 1). Among these methods, contracts with schooldistricts for exclusive use of one brand or another are especiallynoteworthy. Although such “pouringrights” contracts have been obtained by colleges and universities since theearly 1990s,[5],[6] their introduction into elementary, middle,and high schools is a more recent--and more questionable--marketingdevelopment.
Why care about soft drinks?
Soft drinks are the quintessential “junk”food. For the purposes of thisdiscussion, a soft drink is a soda made from carbonated water, added sugar, andflavors (diet sodas substitute artificial sweeteners for the sugar but are notcurrently consumed by children to any great extent). A 12-ounce can of regular soda contains 40grams of added sugar--which provide about 160 calories--but little else ofnutritional value. This nutrientcomposition readily explains why Center for Science in the Public Interestrefers to soft drinks as “liquid candy.”[7] As shown in Table 2, 12 ounces of orange juice--even thatreconstituted from cans--provides substantial amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C,folate, potassium, and other essential vitamins and minerals along with itssugar and calories; an equivalent amount of 1% low-fat milk also is a superiornutritional option.[8],[9]
If soft drinks were occasional treats, nopublic health nutritionist would be the slightest bit concerned aboutthem. But they are produced in vastquantities, as shown in Table 3. From 1970to 1997, the production of regular, sweetened sodas increased from 22.2 to 41.4gallons per person per year, and the production of diet sodas increased from2.1 to 11.6 gallons per person per year.[10],[11] These amounts mean that the annual per capita supply of 12-ouncesoft drinks in the U.S. is equivalent to 442 regular and 124 diet drinks(total: 566). On average, enoughregular soda is produced to supply every American--of every age--with1.2 daily 12-ounce drinks, or just under 200 calories per day from this sourcealone. These are production figures, however; they do not necessarily reflectconsumption and often overestimate amounts actually consumed.
In contrast, data from dietary intakesurveys tend to underestimate actual consumption, but such surveys alsoindicate increasing levels of consumption of soft drinks by children, andespecially by teenagers. A nationalsurvey reported that children aged 2 to 17 increased their average daily intakeof sugar-sweetened soft drinks from just under 7 ounces to 9.5 ounces from1989-91 to 1994-95.[12] As illustrated in Table 4, children begin consuming soft drinks early inlife and steadily increase the amounts they drink through adolescence and youngadulthood. Girls aged 12-19 drank 12ounces per day on average in 1994-95 (160 calories), and boys drank 21 ounces(280 calories).[13] For children at the higher levels ofconsumption, soft drinks can contribute many hundreds of “empty” calories aday.7 These extracalories replace calories from more nutritious foods in the diet12 and, if added to usual food intake, could be morethan sufficient to account for rising rates of obesity[14] and obesity-related chronic-diseaserisk factors among American school children.[15] Researchers report that nearly one-fourth ofadolescents consume 26 or more ounces of soft drinks per day (350 calories) andthis group of heavy users takes in more than 600 daily calories than non-usersand drinks much less milk or fruit juice.[16] Frequent consumption of soft drinks haslong been known to induce tooth decay[17]and at least one study suggests that adolescents who consume soft drinks are atgreater risk for bone fractures.[18] Soft drinks are the single greatest sourceof caffeine in children’s diets;[19] a12-ounce cola contains about 45 milligrams but the amounts in more potent softdrinks can exceed 100 milligrams.[20] Parents of teenagers tell me that their children are deliberately usingcaffeinated soft drinks to stay awake in school, and they are concerned aboutthe effects of caffeine on their children’s behavior[21]and on the potential for “addiction,” particularly because companies aredeliberately marketing caffeinated sodas to children as young as age nine.20
Carbonated soft drinks are big businessin the U.S.; they generated $54 billion/year in sales in 1998.[22] The market is dominated by just twocompanies--Coca-Cola and PepsiCo--whose competition for market shareconstitutes the “Cola Wars.”[23] The competition drives marketingstrategies. Coca-Cola, for example, aimsto put a can of Coke within arm’s reach of as many people in the world aspossible;[24] the company’s advertisingexpenditure--just in the U.S.--for Classic Coke was $115.5 million in1998. The advertising budget for Pepsiwas $82.7 million.[25]
Competition among soft drink companies,and increasing competition from sweetened juice drinks,12 have forced soft drink companies to seek new marketsamong younger and younger children.[26] They approach this task through the various methods listed in Table 1. Because the overall strategy is toestablish brand loyalty as early in life as possible,[27] marketing efforts begin with theparents of young infants. Some softdrink companies license their logos to makers of baby bottles. One manufacturer explains that the bottles are“designed to be fun and enjoyable for the parents and the baby...[such that]the positive effects of the bonding experience will be increased for bothparent and child.”[28] Studies demonstrate that parents who buy suchbottles are significantly more likely to use them to feed soft drinks toinfants.[29] PepsiCo states explicitly that its strategyis to expand soft drink consumption among children aged 6-11.[30]
PouringRights Contracts: The Logical Next Step
A stable base of sales is only the mostevident of benefits of pouring rights contracts; the agreements also result inconstant advertising through display of company logos on vending machines,cups, sportswear, brochures, and school buildings. The logos and products are seen by all students in a school, even those tooyoung or too difficult to reach by conventional advertising methods, and theuse of a single brand creates loyalty among young people who have a lifetime ofsoft drink purchases ahead of them.26
It also is not difficult to understandwhy administrators of financially-strapped school districts would find thesecontracts desirable. As the Americanpopulation has aged, as the gap between rich and poor has widened, and as theproportion of low-income school children has increased, the tax base for publicschools has consistently eroded over the past decades. Schools struggle to provide for basiceducational needs, let alone activities that might appear as frills. Thus, school districts in Colorado, Ohio,and Texas have contracted with Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Dr. Pepper, respectively,for pouring rights worth millions of dollars; larger school districts haveauctioned their rights to the highest bidder; and other school districts havehired consultants to help them negotiate the best deals with soft drink companies.[31] In the benchmark “deal,” a 53-school Colorado district relinquished itsPepsi vending machines when it signed an $8 million, 10-year agreement withCoca-Cola that included cash bonuses for exceeding sales targets and incentivessuch as a new car for a senior with perfect attendance and high grades.26 The Center forCommercial-Free Public Education, an advocacy organization in Oakland,California, reports that more than 100 districts or schools have signedexclusive contracts with Coke or Pepsi at a cost of more than $100 million tothe companies, and that the number of such contracts doubled just in the lasthalf of 1999.[32]
The contracts provide sports, arts, orcomputer facilities not otherwise available from state or local resources. The 1998 contract between the North Syracuse Central School District in NewYork State and Coca-Cola, for example, is a 10-year agreement that requires all10 of the district’s schools and preschool programs--with a combined populationof 10,100 students--to use Coca-Cola products exclusively in all vendingmachines, athletic contests, booster club activities, and school-sponsoredcommunity events. The contract specifiesthat the company will install, maintain, and stock at least 135 vendingmachines in schools throughout the district for which it guarantees a paymentof $1.53 million--$900,000 upon signing and the rest distributed in annualinstallments of $70,000. The companyagrees to pay additional commissions on purchases that exceed the guaranteedminimum, and will donate 150 free cases of Fruitopia drinks, provide drinks tofund-raising groups for resale, and provide 10,000 books of redeemable couponsalong with other premiums.[33] With the assistance of a powerful statelegislator,[34] the District was able to leveragethis contract to obtain State aid for a $6.5 million sports facility for thehigh school.[35] The New York State Education Department considerred these terms sofavorable that it used them to develop a prototype Model Contract[36] to “ensure that children...are notsubject to commercial exploitation in school” and to help schools balanceeducational goals against “the search for new revenue streams.”[37]
Given the apparent benefits of suchcontracts, it is understandable why many school administrators would find itconvenient to avoid considering their health or ethical implications. They justify the contracts as breaking nonew ground and argue that soft drink vending machines already exist in schools,soft drinks already pervade American culture, children are not forced to drinkthem, and contracts can be written with safeguards that protect students’rights to drink other kinds of soda.34 From thisstandpoint, the benefits of soft drink pouring rights would seem to outweighany concerns they might raise. Asexpressed by the administrator of an Ohio school district with a new contractwith PepsiCo:
We have worried about whether we’reforcing students to pay for their
education through the purchase of softdrinks. In the end, though, we have
decided that is not the case, becauseeach student has the option to buy or
not to buy...Americans drink 13.15billion gallons of carbonated drinks every
year--which means somebody is making alot of money. Why shouldn’t schools
get their share? In the end, everyone wins: the students, theschools, the
community. And for once, even taxpayers get a break.[38]
Early in 1999, I attended conference ofNew York State school food service directors at which participants expressedstrong disagreement with such views. They were deeply troubled by a broad range of issues related to thelength, exclusivity, and financial terms of the contracts, to the lack ofadequate federal oversight of foods sold in competition with school meals, andto the widespread failure of schools to enforce even the weak rules that doexist. They also viewed the contractsas threatening the economic viability of school food service operations, theintegrity of the schools’ educational mission, and--not least--the children’shealth.[39]
Contract issues
Ten years is a long time in the life of aschool-age child and the typical pouring rights contract period greatly exceedsthe tenure of most school boards; boards cannot be held accountable whenschools are locked into contracts that may prove unfavorable--orundesirable--in later years. The publichealth implications of exclusivity contracts in creating an environment thatactively promotes soft drink consumption only rarely emerges as an issue for debate outside of advocacycircles. Instead, the loudest protestscome from competing soft drink companies objecting that the contracts preventsales of their products and, therefore,“freedom of choice” in the marketplace. As stated by a panelist at the New York State conference, “publiclysupported schools should not dictate what students eat when parents andchildren want something else...no other system outside of prison does this--hasa population that has brands enforced upon them.[40] The exclusivity of the contracts also leadsto situations so patently absurd as to gain nationwide media attention. In the most widely-publicized incident, ahigh school suspended a senior student for wearing a shirt with a Pepsi logoduring a “Coke Day” rally sponsored by the student government.[41] To avoid such incidents, New York Statecontracts contain clauses that specifically allow students, employees, andguests to drink and wear products with competing logos on school grounds.36
At first glance, the financial advantagesto the schools seem impressive, not least because a significant part of thefunding comes in an immediate lump sum and is not tied to sales. Most schools use the funds for sportsfacilities--scoreboards seem a particular favorite--but some buy furniture,sound systems, or computers, support student employment, and occasionally payfor scholarships.26 But becausethe contracts provide additional benefits for consumption levels that surpassquotas, school administrators can find themselves in the position of “pushing”soft drinks to faculty, staff, and students. In a now infamous letter circulated on the Internet and published in anational magazine, a Colorado district administrator referring to himself asthe “Coke Dude,” announced payments of $3000, $15,000, and $25,000 toelementary, middle, and high school principals, respectively, provided thatthey sold enough sodas:
we must sell 70,000 cases of product...atleast once during the first three
years of the contract. If we reach this goal, your school allotmentswill
be guaranteed for the next sevenyears...If 35,439 staff and students buy
one Coke product every other day for aschool year, we will double the
required quota. Here is how we can do it: ...Allow students to purchase
and consume vended products throughoutthe day...I know this is ‘just
one more thing from downtown,’ but thelong-term benefits are worth it.[42]
While the effects of the contracts onschools may be questionable, the advantages to the companies are quiteunambiguous. The New York Statecontracts typically call for a charge of $1.00 for a drink purchased fromvending machines, an amount higher than usual retail costs. In early 2000, for example, a casecontaining 24 12-oz cans cost $9.96 at the inflated prices in my localManhattan convenience store--twice the wholesale cost of $4.99.[43] At the rates charged to schoolchildren,$19.01 would be left over to cover the costs of supplies, labor, overhead, andthe donation to the schools. Eventaking the initial payment into consideration, it is difficult to imagine thatsoft drink companies lose money on these deals.
Most unsettling, the profits to thecompanies and the schools depend on the amounts students drink. I have not been able to obtain reliablesales figures, but school food service directors tell me that an average purchaseof one drink per student per day is arealistic estimate for high-school students; the quoted comments of amarketing consultant hired by 63 school systems to negotiate such contractssupport that estimate.31 Schoolofficials report that students drink so many sodas that it is difficult to keepvending machines fully stocked,35 and teachers of my acquaintance give similaraccounts. If just half thestudents in the North Syracuse District consumed one soda per day, gross salesshould exceed $25,000 per week. To such figures must be added sales of drinksat sports and community events. In anyevent, the amount that Coca-Cola guarantees to the District over the entire10-year period comes to a total of $15 per student. These comparative figures explain why companyofficials describe marketing to school children as “a pretty high stakesbusiness development for us,” and state that their companies will “continue tobe very aggessive and proactive in getting our share of the school business.”[44]
Regulatory issues
Soft drink pouring rights contracts arepermitted by amendments to the Child Nutrition Act of 1966[45] which in turn amended provisions ofthe National School Lunch Act of 1946.[46] As outlined in Table 5, thehistory of regulations dealing with sales of soft drinks and other “junk” foodsdefined by Congress as foods of minimal nutritional value is part of a50-year saga of nearly annual Congressional tinkering with the rules governingthe school lunch and breakfast programs. The regulations forsales of these and other competitive foods--foods that chidren might buyinstead of federally-supported meals served in the school cafeteria--constitutea minuscule part of the saga, but they illustrate the ways commercial concernsinfluence Congressional decisions about matters that affect the health ofchildren. For more than 30 years, toprotect the nutritional and economic integrity of the federally-subsidizedschool meal programs, school food service personnel, nutritionists, andadvocates have sought regulations to control sales of competitive foods inpublic schools. Throughout thesedecades, soft drink companies--often joined by principals, school boards, andstate education departments--have opposed any “time-and-place” restrictions onwhen or where competitive foods might be sold. The results of this historic conflict readily reveal why advocates viewthe current regulations as promoting the commercial interests of soft drinkcompanies far more than they do children’s health.
By the late 1960s, coin-operated vendingmachines selling soft drinks and snacks were already well established inschools, and parents, school officials, health authorities, and even Congresscould see that the sales of such foods directly competed withfederally-supported meal programs “for the children’s coins and appetites.”[47] Congress, therefore, asked the USDA Secretary“to take a hard look at some of the competition to the balanced meal offeredwithin schools...the availability of candy bars, soft drinks and a snack linein the school cafeterias.”[48] Congress passed amendments thatallowed USDA to block sales of competitive foods at the same time and place asschool meals were offered (translation: in the school cafeteria during lunchperiods), but permitted any food everserved as part of a school lunch to be sold at other times and places. Thisarcane distinction meant, for example, that cake could be sold but soft drinkscould not.[49]
As a result of these rules, soft drinkcompanies lost revenue, but so did the schools.3 To protecttheir income from sales of competitive foods, school officials joined softdrink companies in pressuring Congress to allow snack foods to be sold at any time and place (also meaning in thecafeteria during lunch periods) provided that the proceeds went to the schoolsor to approved student organizations.[50] They also induced Congress to remove USDA’sauthority to regulate sales of competitive foods and, instead, to delegatedecisions about such sales to state and local education boards.49,[51] These decisions effectively deregulatedcompetitive foods,49 leading critics to state that “profit had triumphedover nutrition.”47 At thispoint, sales from vending machines and other competing venues increased in manyschools.3 In 1977, underthe Carter Administration, Congress viewed sales of competitive foods as anabuse of the school meals program and restored USDA’s regulatory authority.47 In doing so, Congress demanded and receivedassurances from USDA that the agency would not actually ban competitive foods,but would only restrict sales of soft drinks and other foods of minimalnutritional value that “did not make a positive contribution to children’sdiets.”[52]
With its newly regained authority, USDAattempted to ban sales of foods of minimal nutritional value until after theend of the last lunch period. Becausethis proposal elicited a deluge of angry public comments (2,100), USDA withdrewit and solicited additional input. Thissolicitation in turn led to 4,200 more comments49 and generated a 15,000-page record.47 In 1979, USDAagain proposed this idea, this time defining foods of minimal nutritional valueas those containing less than 5% of the Recommended Dietary Allowances8 for eight nutrients (protein, vitamin A, ascorbicacid, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, calcium, and iron) per 100 calories and perserving, a definition then meaning that the restrictions would apply only tocarbonated soft drinks, water ices, certain candies, and chewing gum.49 The revisedproposal elicited 3,100 more comments, of which 562 could be traced directly toa PepsiCo directive suggesting that its employees write letters to USDA arguingthat such objectives would be better achieved through nutrition education.[53] Despite these pressures, USDA held firm; its 1980 final rules continuedto ban vending of soft drinks until the end of the school lunch period.53
With a change in Administration, softdrink producers tried another tactic--they took USDA to court on the groundsthat agency regulations were “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse ofdiscretion...and in excess of statutory jurisdiction.” The District Court dismissed the complaint,stating that “it is an obvious fact of life that a...vending machine, no matterwhere located, can act as a magnet for any child who inclines toward thenon-nutritious.” Soft drink producersappealed the decision, and won. The U.S.Appeals Court ruled that the intent of Congress was simply to control sales of“junk” foods during meal service and that USDA had no right to otherwiserestrict the time and place of sales of competitive foods--even those ofminimal nutritional value.47 The Court did allow one exception;competitive foods other than those of minimal nutritional value could be soldin the cafeteria during meal service if the proceeds went to approved schoolgroups. In practice, the Courtdecision meant that USDA could only prohibit the selling of soft drinks in thecafeteria during meal service periods though they could be sold at other timesand places.[54] As USDA expressed the matter:
the Department does not regulate the sale of foods outsidethe food service area or where the income from such sales go; except thatthe regulations continue to require that income earned by the nonprofit schoolfood service, even outside the food service area...must be used only forthe operation or improvement of the nonprofit school food service.[55]
As might be expected, this rulingstimulated sales of competitive foods3 with the equally to-be-expected result that schoolfood service operations lost revenue. Thus, advocacy groups renewed efforts to restrict such sales.2,3,[56] They encouraged Senator Patrick Leahy (Dem-VT), then chair of the SenateAgriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, to introduce a bill toreinstate the ban on sales of competitive foods of minimal nutritional value inschools until the end of the last lunch period. Predictably, the Coca-Cola company opposed the bill and organized a letter-writingcampaign among school principals, superintendents, and coaches who fearedlosing revenues from vending machines. These efforts prompted Senator Leahy to “complain that the company putsprofit ahead of children’s health...kids have no money, no political clout, nopolitical action committees...If Coke wins, children lose.”[57] In hearings, the Senator noted “that some local officials were beingmisled by Coca-Cola or other bottlers into believing that they had to allowsoda machines in their schools.” Congress, he said, “should put the health of children above corporateprofits.”[58]
In response, a spokesman for Coca-Colaargued that his company makes “no nutritional claims for soft drinks, but theycan be part of a balanced diet. Ourstrategy is ubiquity. We want to putsoft drinks within arm’s reach of desire...schools are one channel we want tomake them available in.”57 A lobbyist forthe soft drink industry argued against sales restrictions because “you have noevidence that the consumption of soft drinks is in any way harmful”[59] and “we question whether there is aneed for ‘Big Brother’ in the form of USDA injecting itself into...decisionswhen it comes to refreshment choices.”58 School principalsalso opposed the bill on the grounds that it would interfere with their abilityto bring in needed revenue for sports and other activities.58
Suchobjections succeeded in convincing Congress to retain the permissiveregulations. In discussions ofamendments passed in 1994, a Senate committee suggested that USDA shouldinstead develop “model language” to restrict sales of soft drinks and othersuch foods in elementary schoolsbefore the end of the last lunch period, but left the decision about whether toadopt that language to the discretion of state and local school authorities.[60] Congress advised USDA to remind secondaryschools that federal laws restricted profit-making sales of soft drinks in foodservice areas during lunch periods.[61] When advocacy groups called on USDA toimpose tighter controls on vended and competitive foods, officials explainedthat Congress had given the agency “no authority to regulate the sale of foods outside the food service area.”[62]
As had been the case since 1972, the 1994amendments explicitly invited state and local school authorities to impose morestringent restrictions on sales of competitive foods, and several have doneso. The New York State regulation, forexample, follows the earlier, more restrictive USDA proposals:
From the beginning of the school dayuntil the end of the last scheduled
meal period, no sweetened soda water, nochewing gum, no candy including
hard candy, jellies, gums, marshmallow candies,fondant, licorice, spun candy
and candy coated popcorn, and no waterices except those which contain fruit
or fruit juices, shall be sold in anypublic school within the state.”[63]
Although reliable data on the questionare difficult to obtain, advocates, teachers, and school officials haveadmitted to me that such rules are routinely ignored. To begin with, soft drink companiescircumvent sales rules by donating sodas to schools for freedistribution during school meal periods, a development that prompted SenatorLeahy to introduce additional legislation to stop such practices: “Nutritiondoesn’t go better with Coke or Pepsi at lunchtime...this is a loophole--bigenough to drive a truck through--that hurts our children...it’s not unlike theold days when the tobacco companies would hand out free cigarettes to kids.[64] Furthermore, the companies have developedsweetened fruit “drinks” that can be sold on lunch lines; these contain just enoughjuice (5%) to circumvent definition as a food of minimal nutritionalvalue.
Research, however,provides only suggestive evidence for rule-breaking. A survey of 55 Minnesota high schoolsreported that 95% of schools that had vending machines left them unlockedduring some school hours, 29% left them unlocked all day, and 15% of them leftthem open during the lunch period; it also found 60% of the vending machines tobe located in the cafeteria, and another 33% near it.4 A nationwidefederal survey reported that 20% of U.S. schools gave students access to vendedsnacks and drinks during lunch periods and two-thirds allowed other competitivefoods to be sold during lunchtimes.[65] These studies merely prove thatopportunities for violating regulations are readily available. Advocates in New York City, however, haveorganized a class action suit against the Board of Education, Chancellor, andfive school principals to enforce what they view as a universally ignored Cityregulation that flatly prohibits “the sale of non-nutritious food, eitherdirectly or through vending machines” in public schools. Noting that the money for competitive “junk”foods in schools “comes from the poorest section of New York City--publicschool parents--who can least afford it,” the suit argues that officials areobligated to comply with existing laws.[66] This suit was still in progress in mid-2000.
Economic Issues
Advocates maintain that if schools aredoing their job properly, the meals programs should contribute to healthyeating habits, be fully integrated into educational activities, and receiveadequate financial support. They believesuch purposes would be best served if all sales of food in schools were managedby food service departments rather than administrators or sports officials forwhom nutrition and health are not necessarily a high priority.56 Theyespecially fear that competitive foods jeopardize the economic viability ofschool meal programs, as these programs are expected to be self-supporting fromfederal reimbursements and must have adequate sales volume to survive.2,3 The shorttime devoted to lunch periods in many schools also discourages students fromeating full meals and encourages purchase of competitive foods that can beeaten on the run. This combination ofcircumstances has forced school food service departments to recruit customersthrough development of in-house food brands, restaurant-type menus, foodcourts, food cart systems, and new food items that can be purchased separatelyfrom meals. As part of such efforts,they have sought ways to improve the image of school meals, increase demandsfor healthier food choices, and involve students in decisions about how to makeschool meals more appealing.[67] While all of these actions make excellent sense from a businessstandpoint, only some of them reinforce the schools’ educational mission. Milk and other dairy products, for example,account for nearly one-fourth of food purchases by schools; replacing milk with sweetened fruit drinks--onlymarginally more nutritious than sodas but permitted on lunch lines andinexpensive--reduces food costs.[68]
That soft drink companies deliberatelycompete with school meals seems quite evident from testimony at Congressionalhearings. During those for the 1994 Act,for example, a high school food service director testified that when theCoca-Cola company distributed free 20-ounce bottles of soda, participation inthe school lunch program declined by half. She reported that Coca-Cola had provided cash incentives, bicycles,computers, and catered events to her school, and that it would be difficult forher principal to give up such perquisites. She concluded that “without government regulations, Coca-Cola willalways win.”58 Soft drinkindustry lobbyists, however, argue that there is “no evidence to link the saleof our products to poor nutrition or low participation in the school lunchprogram.”59 The dramaticchange noted in USDA food purchases from 1985 to 1997, however, demonstratesthat soft drinks and other less nutritious beverages have substantiallyreplaced milk in the diets of school children.68 This change,which also affects the livelihood of community dairy farmers, is reflected innational production figures. As shown in Table 3, the annual production of milk in theU.S. fell from 31 gallons in 1970 to 24 gallons per capita in 1997.11
Educational issues
From itsinception, the purpose of the School Lunch Program was to improve thenutritional status of children while providing an outlet for surplusagricultural commodities. Figuring outhow to use school meals to promote nutritional goals has not been easy,however, and has preoccupied Congress since 1966.45 As nutritionalproblems among children have shifted from deficiencies to obesity and otherconditions of affluence, advocates have pressured USDA to bring school mealsinto compliance with national dietary guidelines for health promotion.[69] As part of this effort, they asked USDA toset nutritional standards for vended foods,3 and to require vendors to label their products withinformation about nutrient contents.56 These demandsreflected the view that schools bear responsibility for setting nutritionalstandards for American children. Inimplementing the provisions of the 1994 School Lunch amendments, USDA acceptedthis principle when it recognized that school meal programs could establish“childhood eating patterns that influence lifelong habits” and specifiedreductions in the fat, sugar, and salt content of the lunches to bring them into compliance with federal dietaryguidelines.[70]
Public Health Service objectives forhealth promotion and disease prevention specify that information about healthful dietary patterns should beincluded as part of comprehensive health education curricula in middle, junior high, and senior high schools.1 Part of thereason for attention to school nutrition education is that it has beendemonstrably effective, especially when supported by meals served in schoolcafeterias.[71] Participants in school meal programs havebeen shown to consume better diets than non-participants, but if they replaceschool meals with competitive foods of minimal nutritional value, the qualityof their diets can be expected to deteriorate.16,67
Implications
Soft drink companies had sold theirproducts for many years through vending machines on school and collegecampuses, but they made greater efforts to do so in the early 1990s, initiallyfocusing on colleges and universities.5,6 Their morerecent attention to children in grades K-12 can be seen as part of theincreasing intrusiveness of commercial interests in schools.30,[72] Companies routinely use the methods summarized in Table 1 to marketfood products to children in school, and these activities are now so common asto be taken for granted. An official ofPepsiCo casually mentions that “marketing to the 8-to-12 year-old set is apriority,”30 as if it were unquestionably appropriate for a softdrink company to direct sales efforts to such young children. Soft drink companies--and school officialswho contract with them--implicitly assume that soft drinks are appropriate farefor children of that age rather than milk, juice, or water, any of which wouldbe a better nutritional choice.
The level of cynicism revealed inmarketing efforts is especially disturbing. What are we to make of statements like the one attributed to aconsultant who helps schools obtain contracts? In his view, pouring rights contracts make schools more realistic forchildren. “If you have no advertising inschools at all, it doesn’t give our young people an accurate picture of oursociety.”31 Pouring rightscontracts clearly teach students that school officials are willing tocompromise nutritional principles for financial reasons,2 even when the linking of payments to higherconsumption goals puts them in the position of advocates for soft drinkconsumption. When school administratorstell reporters that “the nutrition aspect is important, but I’m ambivalentabout it,” they contribute to student attitudes that nutrition and health arenot important concerns.[73] It is an all too rare school administrator who is willing to state that“matters involving money properly stop at the schoolhouse door.[74] The well-financed promotion in schools ofsoft drinks and other foods of poor nutritional quality directly underminesfederal efforts to improve the dietary intake of children and reduce rates ofobesity.1 Even thoughcolleges--and now even cities[75],[76]--havebecome advertising vehicles for soft drink companies, elementary and secondaryschool students deserve some protection against commercial interests thatcontribute to poor nutrition.
Public health professionals could reversesuch trends through policy options in several areas. We could more strongly promote nutritionmessages that encourage consumption of water, juices, and low-fat milk, anddiscourage consumption of sodas and sweetened fruit drinks, in dietaryguidelines for young children.[77] For Americans over the age of two, theproposed federal dietary guideline, “choose beverages and foods that limit yourintake of sugars,” could be stated much more explicitly to make it consistentwith its intended meaning: “limit intake of soft drinks as a source of addedsugar.”[78] We could also offer support to community andstate efforts to organize students to identify and resist commercialism,32 to require firm adherence to existing regulations,66 to disallow exclusivityagreements,[79] and to refuse pouring rightscontracts altogether.26,73 Schooldistricts in California, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, for example, have refused toenter into such contracts after protests by parents, students, and schoolofficials;[80]clearly, such efforts can be successful. At the national level, we could join advocates for federal regulationsto restrict sales of competitive foods in general2,3 and those of minimal nutritional value in particular,expanding the definition of such foods to include the new “juice” products andother such foods.56 We also couldconsider a range of pricing, tax, and other “environmental” strategies toimprove the diets of school children, similar to those that have been proposedto address current trends in obesity.[81]
Although pouring rights contracts areonly one component of an arsenal of food company marketing techniques,27 their significance is central to issues related toequity in our society. Congressional reluctance to favor children’shealth above the rights of soft drink producers is a direct result of electionlaws that require legislators to obtain corporate funding for their campaigns.[82] More rational campaign financing laws mightpermit Congress to take positions based on public good rather than privategreed.
Similarly, if American public schoolswere funded adequately, the blatant commercialism inherent in pouring rightscontracts would almost certainly be subjected to greater scrutiny, anddepartments of education, school boards, principals, and coaches would be lesslikely to enter into such agreements without far more public debate than is nowthe case. As one school board official explained, “education cannot be fundedby potato chip contracts...come back and talk to me about nothing being wrongwith these contracts when there are Coca-Cola banners in the House ofRepresentatives.”[83]
Pouring rights contracts may solveimmediate problems of school funding but their social cost is high, not leastbecause they undermine efforts to establish adequate federal, state, and localfunding for public education. Thesecontracts, therefore, point to the need for public health professionals to paymuch greater attention to commercial pressures on children and to instigatemuch more critical analysis of such pressures from school officials, healthprofessionals, legislators, and the public than this issue has received todate.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Donna Barth and Agnes Molnar forpointing out the significance of “pouring rights,” Jon Moss for backgroundinformation on school practices, Suzanne Rostler and Stacey Freis for researchassistance, and two anonymous reviewers for exceptionally helpfulsuggestions. This work was supported inpart by research challenge grants from New York University and its School ofEducation.
References
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Table 1. Examples of methods used by soft drink companies to market theirproducts to children in and out of school.
Marketingmethods targeted to children
1. Television advertising
2. Internet advertising
3. Internet interactive computer games
4. Toys, clothing, and other items with logos
5. Discount cards, coupons
6. Telephone cards
7. Celebrity endorsements
8. Motion picture sponsorship
9. Product placements in movies
10. Supermarket placements
11. Fast food chain tie-ins
12. Prizes
Marketingmethods targeted to children at school
1. Channel One (required television watching, withcommercials)
2. Soft drink “pouring rights” agreements
3. Logos on vending machines, supplies, sportsfacilities
4. Hallway advertising
5. Advertisements on school buses
6. Sports uniforms, scoreboards
7. Contests
8. Free samples
9. Coupons for fast food
10. Club and activity sponsorship
11. Sponsorship of school sports, other events
12. Teaching materials
Return tothe reference from: first paragraph, Why areabout soft drinks?, Implications.
Table 2. Thenutrient composition of soft drinks in comparison to orange juice or low-fatmilk.9
Coca-Cola Pepsi Orange Juicea Low-fat 1% Milk
Per 12 oz Serving
Calories, kcal 144 160 168 153
Sugar, g 38 40 40 18
Vitamin A,IU 0 0 291 750
Vitamin C,mg 0 0 146 3
Folate, µ 0 0 164 18
Calcium, mg 0 0 33 450
Potassium,mg 0 0 711 352
Magnesium,mg 0 0 36 51
Phosphate,mg 60 55 60 353
a Fromfrozen concentrate.
Return to the reference.
Table 3. Beverages available in the U.S. Food Supply.10,11
Soft Drinks Milk
Diet Regular Juice
Gallons/Person/Yeara
1970 2.1 22.2 5.7 31.3
1975 3.2 25.0 6.9 29.5
1980 5.1 29.9 7.4 27.6
1985 7.1 28.7 8.3 26.7
1990 10.7 35.6 7.9 25.7
1995 11.8 39.8 8.7 24.3
1997 11.6 41.4 9.2 24.0
a One gallon = 128 ounces. These figures indicate that the supply of12-ounce soft drinks in the U.S. in 1997 was equivalent to 442 regular and 124diet drinks (total: 566) for every person in the population, regardless of age.
Return to the reference from: Why care about soft drinks? or Ecomomic Issues.
Table 4. Consumption of carbonated soft drinks by age and sex, 1994-95.13
Total Males Females
Age Ounces (Regular Soda/Diet Soda)
1-2 1.5 (1.5/0)
3-5 4 (3.5/0.5)
6-11 8 (7/1) 7 (6/1)
12-19 22 (21/1) 14 (12/2)
20-29 29 (20/9) 16 (12/4)
30-39 18 (14/4) 13 (8/5)
40-49 14 (10/4) 12 (6/6)
50-59 11 (7/4) 9 (4/5)
60-69 6 (4/2) 5 (3/2)
>70 4 (2/2) 3 (2/1)
AllAges 12 (9/3)
Return to the reference.
Table 5. Selected events in the history of regulations governing sales of softdrinks and other competitive foods of “minimal nutritional value” in elementaryand secondary schools.
1946 National School Lunch Act passedto promote use of surplus agricultural
commoditiesin school meals as a means to improve the nutritional status of
low-incomechildren.
1966 Child Nutrition Act requires U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop
regulationsgoverning nutritional aspects of school meal programs.
1970 Amendments to 1966 Act ban salesof competitive foods in or near school cafeterias
duringmealtimes, but allow individual foods served in school meals to be sold
competitivelyat other times and places, in effect restricting only soft drinks and candies.
1972 Amendments permit sales ofcompetitive foods during mealtimes if proceeds
benefitschools or school groups; transfer authority to regulate competitive foods
fromUSDA to state and local education boards.
1977 Amendments restore USDA authorityto regulate competitive foods.
1978 USDA proposes rules restrictingsales of foods of “minimal nutritional value”--soft
drinks,water ices, chewing gum, certain candies--from the beginning of the school
dayuntil after the last lunch period; withdraws proposal in response to comments.
1979 USDA reproposes rules; PepsiCoorganizes letter-writing campaign opposing USDA
authority.
1980 USDA issues final rules similarto those proposed in 1978. National SoftDrink
Associationsues to overturn regulations; loses, appeals, and wins in 1983.
1983 U.S. Appeals Court rules thatUSDA cannot impose “time-and-place” restrictions on
salesof competitive foods.
1985 USDA revises rules; prohibitssales of competitive foods of minimal nutritional value
onlyduring lunch periods in cafeterias; permits sales at all other times and
placeswith no restrictions on allocation of revenues.
1990 Citizens Commission on SchoolNutrition recommends restrictions on availability of
non-nutritiousfoods in schools.
1991 American Dietetic Association andAmerican School Food Service Association
recommendrestricting or banning sales of competitive foods in schools.
1994 Senate introduces bill torestrict or ban school sales of soft drinks and other foods
ofminimal nutritional value. Congressreaffirms 1985 rules but permits USDA to
propose“model language” recommending time-and-place restrictions on sales in
elementaryschools.
1995 Center for Science in the PublicInterest (CSPI) petitions USDA to require
competitivefoods to meet standards for good nutrition.
1998 CSPI publishes Liquid Candy: How Soft Drinks are HarmingAmericans’ Health; urges
schoolsto stop selling soft drinks.
1999 USDA places soda pop at the “eatless” tip of its dietary pyramid for children aged
2 to 6.
2000 Text of proposed DietaryGuidelines suggests reducingintake of added sugars by
limiting use of softdrinks.
source of added sugars.
instead drinking water.
Return to the reference.