Bill encourages healthy lifestyle for S.C. children

COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina schoolchildren would be required to exercise for a couple hours each week and could only get healthy snacks from vending machines under a bill that passed the House 101-0 on Wednesday.

The bill takes aim at reducing growing obesity rates and other health problems among children.

The Students Health and Fitness Act would require two and a half hours of physical education weekly for kindergarten through fifth-grade students, who now may get just 30 minutes.

Schools would have three years to fully implement the bill. This fall, under the bill, students would be required to participate in a little more than an hour of physical activity.

The legislation also requires that elementary schools remove vending machines serving food and drinks that do not meet U.S. Agriculture Department standards of healthy snacks. Beverage vending machines available to students could sell only 100 percent fruit juice or bottled water.

Some elementary schools already restrict access vending machines that sell traditional items like carbonated soda and chips, allowing only teachers to buy from them.

The changes would cost $6 million during the first year. The legislation would not go into effect unless the General Assembly provides the money.

Similar legislation is being considered in a Senate committee. The House legislation needs only third reading before crossing to the Senate.

"Over the years, physical activity for our children has been dramatically reduced and all manner of unhealthy foods have been introduced for them to eat and drink," Rep. Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said in a statement. "Our children need to learn to eat healthy and exercise regularly."

Harrell sponsored the legislation, which includes some of the recommendations of a student nutrition task force formed two years ago by state Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum to address the increasing number of overweight children.

Nationwide, the number of overweight children ages 6 to 11 doubled from 1980 to 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control. About 15 percent of children in the United States are overweight, according to the U.S. Surgeon General.

Twenty-five percent of children ages 5 to 10 have high cholesterol, high blood pressure or other early warning signs of heart disease, according to the legislation.