Curbing
childhood obesity on Legislature's agenda
Kansas Health
Institute Provides Data and Legislative News
If you are interested in health policy
issues, the Kansas Health Institute has just the website for you. To
ensure the news service is of the highest quality, KHI has recruited a
team of award-winning Kansas journalists to work with their staff of
health policy researchers and analysts to produce it. The following was
pulled from KHI's new News Service.
On the nutrition front, Senate Bill
170, a proposal to limit the kind of vending machine beverages that can
be sold in elementary and middle schools, awaits hearing in the Senate
Education Committee. The House Education Committee has introduced a
stronger bill. House Bill 2275 would require schools to turn off their
vending machines during the school day. Machines that only dispense water
would be excluded from the "shut down" requirement.
Other bills address increasing requirements for physical activity for
children in public schools.
Another physical activity &
nutrition related bill would require public schools to administer fitness
tests that include weighing and measuring students so that body
mass index (BMI) calculations can be made by the Kansas Department of
Health and Environment is being pushed by Rep. Pat Colloton, R-Leawood.
In Kansas, direct medical costs related to obesity are estimated to be
more than $650 million a year.
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