Hello, everyone.
Hot topics in the news recently awaiting your live participation!
So, choose one of the articles below to read and give your comments on it. Always remember to propose a question so that your virtual friends can be challenged to answer.
The 1st article - New rules aim to rid schools of junk foods - discusses the changes of US regulations for healthier school foods to be implemented. What do all the players (retailers, schools, family, kids) think about it?
The 2nd article - Dilma's reforms: what she should do, and why she won't - discusses the measures to be taken by our president and if they will really happen in the short, mid and long terms, after the intense protests that have been seen recently in many Brazilian state capitals.
Keep up with the news and at the same time practice the English language.
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Best wishes,
Flávia
New rules aim to rid schools of junk foods
MARY CLARE JALONICK 5 hours ago HealthVending machineSports drink
WASHINGTON (AP) — High-calorie sports
drinks and candy bars will be removed from school vending machines and
cafeteria lines as soon as next year, replaced with diet drinks, granola bars
and other healthier items.
The Agriculture Department said
Thursday that for the first time it will make sure that all foods sold in the
nation's 100,000 schools are healthier by expanding fat, calorie, sugar and
sodium limits to almost everything sold during the school day.
That includes snacks sold around the
school and foods on the "a la carte" line in cafeterias, which never
have been regulated before. The new rules, proposed in February and made final
this week, also would allow states to regulate student bake sales.
The rules, required under a child
nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort
to combat childhood obesity. The rules have the potential to transform what
many children eat at school.
While some schools already have made
improvements in their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are
selling high-fat, high-calorie foods. Standards put into place at the beginning
of the 2012 school year already regulate the nutritional content of free and
low-cost school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal
government. However most lunchrooms also have the "a la carte" lines
that sell other foods — often greasy foods like mozzarella sticks and nachos.
Under the rules, those lines could offer healthier pizzas, low-fat hamburgers,
fruit cups or yogurt, among other foods that meet the standards.
One of the biggest changes under the
rules will be a near-ban on high-calorie sports drinks, which many beverage
companies added to school vending machines to replace high-calorie sodas that
they pulled in response to criticism from the public health community.
The rule would only allow sales in
high schools of sodas and sports drinks that contain 60 calories or less in a
12-ounce serving, banning the highest-calorie versions of those beverages.
Many companies already have developed
low-calorie sports drinks — Gatorade's G2, for example — and many diet teas and
diet sodas are also available for sale.
Elementary and middle schools could
sell only water, carbonated water, 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice, and
low fat and fat-free milk, including nonfat flavored milks.
First lady Michelle Obama, an
advocate for healthy eating and efforts to reduce childhood obesity, pointed
out that many working parents don't have control over what their kids eat when
they're not at home.
"That's why as a mom myself, I
am so excited that schools will now be offering healthier choices to students
and reinforcing the work we do at home to help our kids stay healthy,"
Mrs. Obama said in a statement.
At a congressional hearing, a school
nutritionist said Thursday that schools have had difficulty adjusting to the
2012 changes, and the new "a la carte" standards could also be a
hardship.
Sandra Ford, president of the School
Nutrition Association and director of food and nutrition services for a school
district in Bradenton, Fla., said in prepared testimony that the healthier
foods have been expensive and participation has declined since the standards
went into effect. She also predicted that her school district could lose $975,000
a year under the new "a la carte" guidelines because they would have
to eliminate many of the foods they currently sell.
"The new meal pattern
requirements have significantly increased the expense of preparing school
meals, at a time when food costs were already on the rise," she said.
Ford called on the USDA to
permanently do away with the limits on grains and proteins, saying they
hampered her school district's ability to serve sandwiches and salads with
chicken on top that had proved popular with students.
The Government Accountability Office
said it visited eight districts around the country and found that in most
districts students were having trouble adjusting to some of the new foods,
leading to increased food waste and decreased participation in the school lunch
program.
However, the agency said in a report
that most students spoke positively about eating healthier foods and predicted
they will get used to the changes over time.
One principle of the new rules is not
just to cut down on unhealthy foods but to increase the number of healthier
foods sold. The standards encourage more whole grains, low-fat dairy, fruits,
vegetables and lean proteins.
"It's not enough for it to be
low in problem nutrients, it also has to provide positive nutritional benefits,"
says Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the
Public Interest who has lobbied for the new rules. "There has to be some
food in the food."
The new rules are the latest in a
long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful
and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised
last year and put in place last fall.
The 2010 child nutrition law also
provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required
more meals to be served to hungry kids.
Last year's rules making main lunch
fare more nutritious faced criticism from some conservatives, including some
Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what
to eat.
Mindful of that backlash (a strong or violent reaction), the
Agriculture Department left one of the more controversial parts of the rule,
the regulation of in-school fundraisers like bake sales (a sale of homemade, donated baked goods, as by a church or club to raise money), up to the states.
The new guidelines also would not
apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies
brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for
their own personal consumption.
The USDA so far has shown a
willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new
requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government
temporarily relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after
school nutritionists said they weren't working.
The food industry has been onboard
with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the
child nutrition law three years ago.
Dilma’s reforms: what she should do, and why she won’t
Jun 25, 2013 9:13pm
After a meeting with governors and mayors on Monday called in response to the biggest protests in Brazil in nearly a generation, President Dilma Rousseff announced five pacts ranging from political reform to better public health.
Here is a list of the five, their likelihood of being effective (mostly very little), followed by a beyondbrics wishlist and its likelihood of happening (next to zero).
Dilma’s pacts:
1. Maintain fiscal responsibility – This was already deteriorating and it is hard to see how governments will maintain the line now with even greater pressure for better services following the protests.
2. Plebiscite – hold a referendum to set up a constitutional assembly on political reform. Verdict: Unnecessary as Congress could implement political reform itself if it really wanted to. Likely to get lost in Brazil’s labyrinthine political system.
3. Fight corruption through classifying graft as a heinous crime. A start but will make little difference without a functioning legal system (see below). Brazil has no shortage of good laws, it’s just a matter of implementing them.
4. Accelerate investment in hospitals and clinics, import foreign doctors. Er … in government, isn’t this is called just doing your job? Still, better than nothing.
5. R$50bn for investment in public transport. Haven’t we already established the issue in Brazil is not how much money you throw at a problem but implementation?
Beyondbrics’ wishlist:
1. Ministers – immediately slash the cabinet from 39 or 40 ministers presently to 15. Likelihood of happening – zero. In Brazilian politics no one wants to be in opposition.
2. Present a coherent short, medium and long-term vision for the economy based on orthodox economics. Reshuffle the cabinet to include people with international, private sector experience at the highest level of business. Likelihood of happening – near zero. Would be too painful for vested interests. Could result in a short recession ahead of an election year.
3. Insist to her Workers’ Party that all mensaleiros, those cadres sentenced to jail for corruption last year in Brazil’s biggest corruption case, immediately be suspended from Congress until the appeal process is concluded. Likelihood of happening? Near zero. Dilma cannot afford to confront the core of her party.
4. Introduce reforms to speed up court cases so that none last for more than five years. Likelihood of happening? Close to zero. Congress would never have it – too many legislators are facing legal processes themselves.
5. Reduce bureaucracy immediately by set targets. For instance, enable businesses to be opened in three days instead of 121. Likelihood? Not happening – Brazil’s tangled bureaucracy is stuck in a maze of red tape.
The crux of the matter is that ultimately, it is not in the president’s political interests to be seen taking radical steps at this stage. That would be akin to admitting she is the problem. That is why she has sought to include Congress and the governors and mayors in a national dialogue.
So where does that leave us? Where we started. Only direct, sustained public pressure on Brazil’s politicians of the kind seen this month will speed up the glacial pace of change in the system.
