SENATORS ROLL OUT PRO-NUTRITION AGENDA

(AUSTIN) — Texas must take steps to improve the health of children and adults, and that starts with the food they eat, said the chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Brenham Senator Lois Kolkhorst was joined by other members at a Tuesday press conference to unveil a series of bills aimed at reducing chronic disease and better informing the public about the nutritional decisions they make every day. “We have to do something about these chronic diseases,” said Kolkhorst. “This is for our children and this is for our grandchildren.”

The Health and Human Services Committee held a number of hearings over the interim investigating the link between nutrition and chronic disease. Kolkhorst said the findings were startling. The US spends $4.5 trillion on healthcare costs every year, she said, with 90 percent of those costs going for treatment of chronic disease and mental health disorders. “We spend more than any other nation, and by any metric, we are performing down here,” said Kolkhorst, pointing to the ground. One in five children are obese, she said, and nearly three-fourths of American adults are overweight or obese. Cancers in people younger than 50 have increased 79 percent since 1990, with increases in more than half of those cancers attributable to excess body weight.

Kolkhorst plans to tackle this problem with a broad bill, SB 25, focused on nutritional education and physical exercise. She said it is built on four pillars. The first is childhood exercise. The bill would increase the number of hours public school kids spend in physical education. Second, the bill would mandate nutritional education for medical providers, when they are in school, when they are in residency training, and as a continuing education requirement. Kolkhorst said that in meeting with providers over the interim, she found that only a handful had formal training in proper nutrition. “We’re not teaching good nutrition to our medical students,” she said. The third pillar of the bill would create a new advisory council that will study the possible link between processed foods and chronic disease. Finally, the bill would implement new labelling standards, requiring that food labels carry a clear warning if a product contains ingredients that are banned by health officials in Europe, the UK, or Canada. “If an ingredient is not permitted in most of western civilization…you’re going to have to put a label on it,” she said.

The other two bills deal with nutrition for those on government assistance. The first, SB 314 by Mineola Senator Bryan Hughes, would ban the use of certain chemicals and dyes in food served under the free-and-reduced lunch program to needy school children. Hughes said that these kids don’t have a choice in what food they eat, and therefore the state needs to ensure they are being served healthy meals. “If an ingredient is linked to severe human harm, is unnecessary, and alternatives are available, state law would prohibit it from being served on that child’s plate,” he said. As filed, the bill prohibited seven ingredients by name, all additives that are banned in one or more US states or EU countries. At Tuesday’s press conference, Hughes announced that the bill would be expanded to include even more synthetic dyes and additives.

The final bill, SB 379 by Galveston Senator Mayes Middleton, would make junk food ineligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The purpose of these programs, said Middleton, is to provide healthy food for those on government assistance, but the current system doesn’t do that. “We want to make sure that we are providing that healthy and nutritious food for Texans in need,” he said. The bill removes a variety of sugary drinks, as well as other food items like candy, chips, and cookies from SNAP eligibility.

SB 25 and SB 314 will be taken up by the Health and Human Services Committee as they hold their first public meeting of the session Wednesday.

###