Take a guess: How many kids in the United States are overweight? Believe it or not, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that about 25 million kids have packed on too many pounds. According to the CDC, childhood obesity has become an epidemic. Lots of people are taking notice of the problem—even former U.S. president Bill Clinton. He was president from 1993–2001.

By next fall, Chicago will have new rules restricting junk food and cafeterias like this one.

To help kids keep off the pounds, Clinton teamed up with the American Heart Association. They formed a foundation called The Alliance for a Healthier Generation. Last spring, the alliance convinced soft-drink manufacturers to remove sugary drinks from school vending machines. But Clinton and the team didn't stop there. On October 6, the Alliance announced plans to revamp the snacks found in school vending machines.

Five major food manufacturers voluntarily agreed to improve the healthfulness of their vending machine snacks. Mars plans to create a new line of snacks. Dannon is going to reduce the sugar content in its Danimals yogurt. Kraft plans to lower the calorie count of its vending machine snacks. PepsiCo plans to use healthier ingredients.

The Alliance hopes that improving vending machine choices will eventually lead to healthier school lunch choices. Selling healthier food in vending machines, "is a first step," said Raymond Gibbons, president of the American Heart Association.

School lunches are on the menu for English celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. He recently filmed a documentary that tracked his quest to improve the lunches of 60 schools in the United Kingdom. He promised to deliver healthy food that kids would like at the same price as the original unhealthy choices. The program was a huge success. As a result, the British government committed more than $500 million towards improving school lunches. Now Oliver is hoping to do the same in the United States. An estimated 5 billion lunches are served each year in the United States. Many of them are processed, high-calorie, high-sodium, and full of preservatives. He'd better get cooking!

• www.healthiergeneration.org (The Alliance for a Healthier Generation)


• www.kidshealth.org