Who's leading the fight against malnutrition and obesity in America? While it would seem the answer would be many different groups and individuals, it is clear that the Torrance Unified School District in Southern California has to be included in the mix. There is a piece of legislation called California Senate Bill 19 (often seen expressed as CA SB 19). This piece of legislation has wide reaching implications for nutrition content in California Schools. A good portion of it deals with stating that snacks in schools, even for fundraising, will be required to meet a new criteria. These snack items will be required to be less than 35% fat, less than 35% sugar, and less than 10% saturated fat.



Additionally, they'll be less than 250 calories and grant exclusions for fat content to nuts and nut butters.

While CA SB 19 will mandate compliance by September 2008, the Torrance Unified School District has taken the admirable step of agreeing that district wide compliance will be in effect in September of 2007. This is highly unusual and the Torrance Unified School District Board members should be commended for placing the healthy of their students above the quick buck to be made by pushing junk food to children. This move is clearly the right thing to do, but it comes at a cost. The burden of finding healthy fundraising solutions is clearly upon the district. So it's with difficulty and possible financial hardship that the school district decided to stand up for what's right.

In the true avante garde of the Nutrition in Schools Movement, individual educators in the Torrance Unified School District have been out front in searching for Healthy Fundraising Solutions. With candy and junk food no longer an option for fundraising, groups and teams will now need Healthy Fundraising Solutions if they are to continue fundraising for Band Trips, Wrestling tournaments and Track meets. Specifically, representatives of North High School in Torrance, CA have been out front in finding healthy fundraising solutions, wherein they sell snack items which meet CA SB 19 criteria. That is, the items are less than 35% fat, less than 35% sugar, less than 10% saturated fat,

with exclusions for nuts and nut butters.

There are clearly many groups and individuals who care about healthy, nutrition and fighting obesity in America's Schools, Deciding to do what's right in this area often comes at great difficulty, and sometimes financial hardship. That's why it's especially important to recognize those who take the lead in doing what we all agree is right. Kudos to the Torrance Unified School District and it's School Board Members!