Unite With Parents & “Stir It Up” To Kick Soda Out of the Schools! Take Action Now!

Join a million of us. Stir It Up! And now!

Help us kick those calorie-filled, nutrient-lacking, high fructose corn syrup-laden soft drinks and other empty-calorie foods out of the schools.

Indeed, kudos galore go to Parents Action for Children, a national, non-partisan organization founded by actor /director Rob Reiner to advocate policies that put children and families first.

The group is uniting a million parents across America to Stir It Up!

Let’s face it: It’s getting sadder by the day.

Only 2% of our nation’s kids eat a healthy diet and the number of children who are overweight keeps growing — it’s already nearly doubled in the past 20 years.

And even if a child is normal weight or slim, eating all that junk can harm brain development and even hinder his or her performance in school.

Indeed, as I’ve been learning for nearly five years while working on my book SUGAR SHOCK!, eating too many sugary foods or Much-Like-Sugar foods — which most kids do — can hurt them horribly.

What’s more, ultimately, as they grow up, children’s huge sugar habit could lead to more than 150 horrific health woes, including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, memory and concentration problems, mood swings, depression and more.

You, as a parent or as a concerned adult, have a duty to help our nation’s kids get healthy foods in schools. That means that sodas, candies and or low-quality quickie carbs have no place in our classrooms.

I’m proud to join in this important effort and I urge all of you — whether you’re a parent or not — to

As the exciting Stir It Up Campaign recommends:

  1. First send a pre-written letter now to decision makers (i.e., your senators and representatives) to support Senator Tom Harkin’s (D-IA), Senator Arlen Specter’s (R-PA), Representative Lynn Woolsey’s (D-CA) and Rep. Christopher Shays’ (R-CT) bills to get junk food out of our schools. Our children’s health depends on it.
  2. Take action as a parent and go to the principal’s office.
  3. Make sure these heads of schools get involved. Principals, you really should get in on the action, too!
  4. Get your kids involved, too.

Indeed, as the campagin asserts, "Since children spend most of their waking hours in school, our campaign starts there. With so much junk food in schools and so little opportunity for physical activity, our kids are paying a price with their health.

"Stir It Up is working with educators and school administrators to get soda, candy and other unhealthy foods out of our schools…and physical activity back in. It’s a parents’ movement that will put children first!"

By the way, every month, 100 people who join our campaign by taking action will win the new DVD from Parents’ Action for Children: "Foods and Fitness Matter: Raising Healthy, Active Kids."

Read about this important endeavor:

The Stir It Up Campaign
We’re bringing together parents across the country who will take action to:

Tell Congress to get the junk food out of our schools
Get students, parents, and school administrators involved in getting junk food out and more physical activity into our schools
Incorporate healthy eating and physical activity into the lives of today’s busy families

Now spread the word!

Read on to see the letter that’s already written for you. All you need to do is e-mail it to those legislators listed above.

Here’s the sample letter already written for you to send to your legislators.

No matter how hard as parents we try to ensure that our children eat healthy meals, schools that offer sodas, candy, and fatty snacks and meals can undermine our best efforts. As a parent who cares deeply about my children and my nation’s future, I urge you to cosponsor the "Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection" bill to be introduced this fall by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

These bills would remove junk food from our schools by updating and strengthening the nutrition standards for foods sold on school campuses outside of the federal school meal programs.

Currently, low-nutrition foods are widely available in school vending machines, cafeteria snack lines, at fundraisers and school stores. The most common items sold out of these venues are soda, other sugary drinks, candy, snack cakes, and chips.

Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have doubled in children and tripled in teens. And children’s poor diets are negatively affecting their health. Alarmingly, studies show that as a result of obesity-related diseases this generation is likely to be the first in centuries to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Improving school nutrition helps students learn – and doesn’t hurt the bottom line. A study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control found that schools can switch to selling healthy foods and beverages without losing revenue.

The federal government invests significant resources in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs and has strong nutrition standards for those meals. Selling low-nutrition foods through other venues in schools undermines that investment, parents’ ability to feed their children a healthy diet, and children’s health.

I am sure you share my concern that all our children grow up to be strong, healthy and productive adults. Your support for children is very important to me and other parents in our state. Again, I urge you to cosponsor the "Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection" bill. I look forward to hearing your position on this legislation.