Saxby Chambliss: “today I rise to report on a development by the American Beverage Association, ABA, and its members who have adopted a…”

“today I rise to report on a development by the American Beverage Association, ABA, and its members who have adopted a new policy aimed at helping parents and schools to promote healthy lifestyles for our Nation's students. Recently, the association's board of directors established new school vending policies for its members. The purpose was to help parents, teachers, and children in the school environment make good lifestyle choices by providing appropriate beverage choices for each grade level. Childhood obesity is a problem facing society, and I believe that responsibility for achieving healthy lifestyles is shared by everyone, including parents, communities, schools, government, and industry. Under the new ABA policy, the beverage industry will provide the following: One, only bottled water and 100 percent juice to elementary school students; two, nutritious and/or lower calorie beverages to middle school students, such as bottled water, 100 percent juice, sports drinks, no-calorie and low-calorie soft drinks and low-calorie juice drinks--no full-calorie soft drinks or full-calorie juice drinks with 5 percent or less juice will be provided to middle school students until after school hours; and three, a variety of beverage choices to high school students, such as bottled water, 100 percent juice, sports drinks, and juice drinks. No more than 50 percent of the vending selections made available to high school students will be soft drinks.…”