Texas junk food law conflicts with competitive food regs

Sept. 5—The USDA earned praise this past June when it released its ground-breaking new rules for "competitive" school food, i.e., the snacks and beverages that compete with the federal school meal and are offered to students through school stores, snack bars, vending machines and other outlets. These new rules, while not perfect, will go far to eliminate junk food from school campuses in an era of childhood obesity and poor nutrition. But even as the nation as a whole is moving ahead to improve student health, here in Texas the legislature has just taken a big step in the wrong direction.