Kay Granger: “today we are talking about a bill that requires schools to develop nutritional guidelines for all foods sold in schools.…”

“today we are talking about a bill that requires schools to develop nutritional guidelines for all foods sold in schools. I support this bill, and I believe it is very important for schools to have specific nutritional guidelines in place so healthy food is served in our school cafeterias, but I also want to make sure that everyone realizes that nutritional guidelines are only one piece of the childhood obesity puzzle. What we could overlook in this debate is that government-imposed guidelines can only do so much to prevent childhood obesity. If we really want to make a difference, we must focus on educating youth and their parents about the need to eat right and be physically active. Parents and their children must be acutely aware of the dangers of being overweight or obese. We now know that being overweight can lead to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, uterine cancer, breast cancer, kidney cancer, gall bladder cancer, pregnancy complications, psychological disorders, and that is not the entire list.”