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Had I been in high school when this was proposed, I would have fussed, as the Sonic next to the school was not only a quick meal, especially on late nights for concerts/FFA/etc. but also the hang out for many of us.

Now I don't care as much, as I don't have kids, but I really think it is kinda crazy. Eating habits are learned at home, and it is not really the job of schools to make sure there are no temptations to overeat or eat poorly nearby. Of course some kids will eat it too much/too often, but that would likely happen anyway, and with many foods/places, not just some fast food near the school they attend.

Might as well wrap kids up in bubble wrap and attach nutrient IV packs and give food-desire-altering drugs so kids never get hurt, eat the wrong thing, or miss out on any vitamins from picking fries over salad. Geez.

I remember franchises like McDonalds and Pizza Hut sponsoring projects like "Read 100 Books In the Summer". For every X amount of books, you'd get a free personal-sized pizza.

I don't care how close or far away the franchise is. If the school keeps allowing them to "sponsor" events on campus, then the kids will be influenced.

/ate so many tiny pizzas over many summers. *sigh*

it think its a great idea. i live next to 3 schools and each morning, there are tons of kids walking up and down the street (its an open campus) with food from the mcdonalds, arby's, chick fil a, and a gas station that are just down the street.

i wonder if these kids would eat breakfast at home if they didn't have fast food to look forward to in the morning. or would they choose healthier options if they had access to them. i understand you can get healthier options at these restaurants, but the lure of the regular breakfast items is usually too strong. they need access to a menu that consist of a variety of healthy choices.

I'm a teacher, and once or twice a month I don't have any options for lunch other than making a very quick drive to one of the nearby fast food restaurants. For that reason, I like that there are a couple of fast food options nearby.

Firstly, if the schools themselves offered a variety of good tasting and reasonably priced foods (and healthy would be nice too) then there might not be such a need for alternative off-campus eating spots.

Ten years ago, when my eldest daughter first entered High School there was a Burger King and a Pizza Hut on campus as well as the school cafeteria (the "Caf). The Caf offers a large variety of both Asian and Western Food including a large salad bar. The food is freshly cooked and in general tastes good. The Pizza King went under first. After they left the school put in a Subway. That Subway is now the largest grossing Subway in Singapore. The line is often twenty to thirty people long. Shortly thereafter the school was renovated and the Burger King opted to move out. No one has missed it. Granted the demographics of the school is upper middle class and the students have a bias towards healthy eating, by I also think there was another dynamic here. By giving the students free and easy access to a number of choices, all food (fast and "slow") became equal and the students opted for more variety and healthier choices over a constant diet of pizza and burgers.

Food for thought!

Like JerzeeTomato, although I attended a good old public school, the campus was closed. It was like Fort Knox, seriously. We had a few options off of campus, but couldn't get there.

On the other hand, I agree that (at least when I was in school) the food that the cafeteria itself served was pretty bad anyway. You could get the standard set lunch, which was rather unappetizing, or you could go "a la carte", which everyone seemed to do. That included things like whole large pizzas (about double the size of a Pizza Hut personal pan one, but called "individual"), fries, burgers and things like that. So, really, it didnt' amke any difference. I ended up a porker anyway, even with only school food, so I think that we definitely need to improve that first...now the problem comes when funding is concerned.

@Sigma_Greg: So true! I think that I spent too many summers eating my weight in personal pan pizzas under that program (curse you, stupid desire to read!)! But, they tasted so good....

1/10 of a mile is a block. Big deal. Kids are going to be able to walk 2 blocks to get fast food, if that's what they really want. And they're going to be able to stop on the way to and from school. And there are going to be plenty of kids that can drive (assuming this is high school) to the places that are a vast distance away. You know, like 3 or 4 blocks.

If you ban all the fast food places within a mile of schools, and go as far as tear down the existing ones, and build a defensive wall around the remaining fast food places for the duration of the school day, kids are going to go to other places. The 7-11, the grocery store, the gas station, the diner that makes killer shakes and fries. There are plenty of places that offer bad food choices. And the kids that care about what they eat can make decent choices from what's available.

This law is going to have absolutely no impact.

There's a high school close to my house, and there are no fast food chain restaurants within...hmmmm...I'm going to say at least eight blocks. Maybe more. At lunchtime the kids on foot swarm the mom-and-pop grocery store and the Mexican place and the sub place (not a chain). Some of the kids are choosing healthy things, like the pre-made salads at the grocery. Others have fist-fulls of candy, pastries, energy drinks, beef jerky...so the lack of fast food places isn't stopping them from eating like that.

Honestly, sometimes the kids go out just to get out of the school. Adults do it too. A change of scenery, some fresh air, a little break. Rather than banning stuff, it might be better to encourage kid-friendly businesses with good food choices to move nearby.

Hungrychristel succinctly summed up what I was thinking...

@producestories:

you can say that is correct I guess!
Would you like to know the motivation for this?
It's called money. The encompassing decision-maker for Western Society.

@hungrychristel - I'd think the fast food chains have more of a profit motive than the government does for trying to get them away from schools. Where does the profit motive come in for the ban?

There were plenty of junk food options like KFC and McD near my high school (non-US), but eating outside of the campus was not allowed. Also had better options like homemade bentos from home, good bakeries on the way to school, and pretty good cafeteria food (pretty healthy and tasty).

In my city, public elementary schools provided school lunches and each school had a certified nutritionist who came up with uber-balanced meal every day. Not that everything was tasty, but was generally good (you get to learn how to serve food to your classmates from 7yo, too), and perfectly balanced.
At least when I was in elementary school, leaving food on a plate was not acceptable even if you don't like some dishes.

Also, nutritional education was required for jr high and hs kids. Cooking classes= required.

In my opinion, "fooducation" is important for everybody.

@hungrychristel - I think you and I have similar thoughts on this subject.

@hmw0029 - Sounds like you attended a great school. However, I personally have a problem with the mindset that often accompanies years of having to clean your plate. I have a theory that many people (myself included) are ill-equipped to be able to eat only what is enough due to a childhood of hearing that 'clean your plate' war cry. I believe it's highly possible that the almost-gluttonous behavior it produces is nearly as unhealthy as a diet of fast food.

Well, I did say NEARLY...

@mollykate678- I don't think they still tell kids to finish everything these days, because of food allergies/intolerance and such.
Come to think of it, there had to be many lactose intolerant kids in my school- we still had to finish our milk! I guess 200ml didn't do that much harm.

My dad has a huge issue with that; he has to finish everything put in front of him, including garnish, because he grew up poor and food was limited. I think it's really bad especially when a serving is huge, like in the US.

You can't outlaw everything. And seriously, even fast food isn't bad for you if you eat it in moderation. And there are plenty of other things that kids could choose in a grocery store that are just as bad or worse than a burger and fries, if you ate them in quantity every day.

If Peeps were outlawed, only outlaws would have Peeps.

I feel that if there is somewhat conclusive evidence (as there is in the article) to indicate that these fast food joints are correlated with an upswing in obesity, then getting rid of them has no harm. Further studies should be done, obviously, to see the potential impact of passing an injunction against the establishment of new joints, but I'm not seeing who's suffering if the nearest Mickey D's closes.

I'm also not sure where the "constitutional" argument is coming in here. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a right to run your business in a specific place...that's all subject to the state/courts. Especially in a situation where the business (a national or international chain) has other sources of revenue - in other words, it's not a mom-and-pop joint where the family's livelihood depends on junk-food-loving teens.

I say, get rid of the places. Then if the students still really want the food, they can walk a little further - thus exercising, and decreasing (however minimally) the impact of the Big Mac!

A little too "Big Brother is Watching You" in my opinion. And really, comparing an adult bookstore to Wendy's seems like a bit of a stretch.

Yeah, we're fat. Yeah, we need to do something about it. Getting government involved...eh, I don't think so.

I agree with thinkingincrayons. The High school cafeterias have all any fast food join has.And our kids have no other way to get what is nutritious, may be with the exemption of getting their own food from home. My daughter's school is the same like any other high school. Thank Got she is going to be able next year to go and have lunch at home or any good restaurant around the school. Yes we have to change first the meals served in the high school cafeterias so the kids, our kids can have a nutritious meal.

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I am not saying ban franchises or ban fast food within school limits I am saying go to your school board and BAN your kids from leaving the premises and wandering the streets to buy fast food. Every year someone from the local yocal high school gets hit by a car crossing the road, why should kids be wandering for lunch? If your cafeteria is serving shit, it's your fault taxpaying people. Go to your schoolboard and speak up. If the kids are wandering the highways to buy crap food ban the wandering. I don't understand how they can let the kids wander off and I would nip that right in the bud if I was a parent. It is school. You are supposed to be IN the school not off on a road trip.

Personally, I attend a school that allows us off campus for lunch and know very few people who go to fast food joints. I agree completely that school lunch systems need a re-vamp -- certainly everyone's afraid of the caf food at my school. But for neighborhoods with decent restaurants in the area, it is financially beneficial for the school and the neighborhood to give students the option of purchasing food off-campus. It seems that this might be a faster and more immediately rewarding solution than working through the kinks of a school-board-approved cafeteria -- the latter should of course be addressed, but allowing students to roam for lunch serves a good purpose as well. If there's another option available, total lockdown is hard to defend -- from a health standpoint and a keeping-teenagers-sane standpoint as well.

This is a topic I've thought a lot about, and given my own relative freedom at school and experience I thought I might contribute...and I do, in fact, understand what a correlation is.

Closed campus for lunch is great in theory, but back in my day, students took the chance at suspension for the double arches. Truthfully, many students that stayed on campus went the Hostess Donettes and milk route for lunch. Four Donettes hace 11 grams of fat and less than one gram of fiber. I can remember one person eating two packages a day. I wonder if he was regular.

When it comes to the liquor store, I cannot provide an insight, but the adult store has been brought up constitutionally. It is a matter of what the community deems obscene.

So when everything that's allegedly causing society to crumble is eventually banned, and kids are still just as screwed up as they are now, are parents FINALLY going to realize that they might have to have some part in raising their children, instead of just having people take away kids' access to the things parents don't think they should have?

My parents raised me to realize that fast food wasn't healthy, and that if I ate it, I needed to balance it out. Why does the government need to step in to make up for the fact that other people can't do the same thing?

You know, my father taught me that good food was good and that crap food was an occasional treat. He did not let me lie around like a slug all day. He made me get involved in sports. In high school I was on track, on the hula team and took karate. From the time I was a baby I helped him with his workout. I sat on his back when he did push-ups. He bench pressed me until I was 12 and made him stop because it insulted my teenaged angst-filled dignity. I worked out with him. He would occasionally force me, as one would force their kid to do their homework or go to bed on time.

I am relating this to you because what he did was instill in me at a very early age the enjoyment of being physically active, of taking care of my body.

Maybe a little bit more of that and a little less worrying about who sells what food down the block from school might be a smarter way to go.

SHAKE SHACK IN MADISON PARK MUST CLOSE!!!! Its only a few short blocks from our babies at 5 NY Public Schools!!!! If it reopens elsewhere, it needs to be in a remote area of the city zoned for warehouses, heavy industry or PORN! It MUST TAX its customer's purchases HEAVILY plus give 20% of its overall profits back to the babies!!! Save our babies!!!

Frivolous. For one thing, schools should be closed campuses, just for the general safety of the student populace. We certainly weren't allowed to leave school premises during lunch, and I attended a public high school.
But more to the point, removing temptation doesn't fix the problem. I mean, talk about your band-aid solutions. We need a shift in parenting methods (the help of health and phys ed classes would be nice too), to emphasize eating healthful foods instead of crap. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but it's pretty rare that I'll see a McDonald's and not feel revulsion. Trained response. :-P
@producestories: Yes, adult book stores and liquor stores may not be allowed close to schools, but would you also suggest that people be required to be 18 or 21 to purchase fast food? No. I would imagine the reason they're not allowed to be close to schools is less about their products being harmful to children than it is about protecting kids from the horrible people that would frequent such vice-filled establishments. ;-)

As a mother of two in high school with open campus.... no I don't think fast food should be banned. I think kids need to be taught growing up what food choices to make, and by the time they are in high school, they've either grown up eating fast food or not.

My kids have two taquerias, a bagelry and chinese food all with-in walking distance, there is fast food too, but most of the kids I know opt for the healthier choices (if there is a choice). I guess it would be a bummer to only have fast food choices around the campus, but banning them seems absurd, and maybe the people trying to ban should instead think about opening up a restaurant near the schools to give the kids other choices.

I tend to think if the worst thing the kids are doing is getting an occasional big mac... we are doing good :)

Wow, this conversation is running an interesting and conflicted gamut... kids are not making smart choices but their choices should be regulated; they're uneducated about food but the culprit is out-of-date parenting techniques; they're too lazy to move around and get healthy food but we should keep them locked down on campus. Part of teaching children is allowing them to have personal responsibility and to make choices over the parts of their lives they can control - like lunch. If they are not given the tools they need to do so, then calling them lazy or fat or stupid is meaningless and - to me, anyway - insulting.

It is sadly true that many young people today are obese or on the path to obesity. This trend is indicative of a deeper cultural problem than just proximity to fast food. But some changes will only occur if they come from above - and in the U.S., the government is "above". It seems to me that it would send a positive community message if legislators framed this type of law as a project on improving the health of local children (and not, alternatively, as a jab against McD's or something like that).

And, slightly tangentially, allowing students to leave campus for lunch has no real downside. I've never known anyone who has gotten hurt when doing so. Although, locking teenagers down has some advantages - at least then all their "insanity" can be contained, no?

I am less a fan of getting in the way of free enterprise and more a fan of offering students healthy & ATTRACTIVE options.

@producestories - yes; sorry I didn't mean to be so blunt.
My thoughts of motivation for profit behind this ban would be the long-term effects of all the legalities that insue and media hype behind the issue--it's definitely an attention grabber with extremists on both sides.
I guess I was really centring my thoughts towards the whole "video game" vs "child violence" ordeal.

In the long-run; laws/bans like this essentially strip citizens of their freedoms--
I'm also not a US resident so I might relate in an entirely different fashion; especially with US health care being privatized. you know?

I almost feel like the US gov. is really really delayed in their reactions to obesity in North America anyway--because they profit from the health effects.

@chisai - I expected the OMGS TOO! WTF?!? haha

Honestly, laws can really only go so far, and I think that that is what a lot of us have been saying here. We can, and probably should, legislate a little, but understand that there will always be loopholes (that fast food joint that is one block further away, or the grocery store that is across the street) and that people will always break the laws, no matter how harsh (see also: illegal narcotics and driving over the speed limit).

From my personal point of view, I think that we could easily try to get the market itself involved, along with a little help from the government, and try to use "marketing" to get kids out and about and exercising, and eating right. Certain companies have done that, but it is few and far between or too hodge podge to really make a dramatic impact. For instance, even if Burger King advertises healthier food, if Carll's Jr. is out promoting exactly the opposite, then that send a mixed message and people (not just kids, but everyone) will ignore it and go with what they have imprinted into their normal routine, healthy or not.

We need to develop some form on a consistent, positive message, and perhaps get the government involved in the sense that schools should offer more recreational time, longer lulnches, so that kids aren't having to just choose the "fastest to eat" option. When I was in school, we only had 15 minutes for lunch. Have you ever tried to eat a salad in 15 minutes? Your jaw will hurt...believe me, I have tried. Perhaps they could put more funding into re-fabbing the outdoor parts of the school, offering recess again (which has been taken away from a lot of elementary schools), et cetera.

The problem lies in funding and willingness to participate as a group and ensure that it isn't a "you must do this" attitude, but something more positive. That is a grand task...no wonder we haven't achieved it yet.

Give me a break...banning "fast food?." What if the food was cooked by Grant Achetz, took 2 days to make but had 40 grams of sat fat in it? How much fat in an order of beef short ribs with pureed potatoes like Joel Robuchon would make (1/3 butter, 1/3 cream, 1/3 potatoes)? What about an In and Out Burger "Animal Style"? The food we all love is fatty, salty and bad for you. Live with it.

why stop at banning fast food? most high end restaurants serve you far more fat and salt than you should have in a meal, ban them too. Oh wait, Chicago banned Foi Gras and alll foodies whined about that. Lets ban children, and then there would be no childhood obesity. The next step is to ban anything anyone is allergic to. So we eliminate soy, legumes, tree nuts, Milk, eggs, celery, sea food and shellfish. THen we must be sensitive to vegetarians so we must ban meat. But legumes means vegetarians can't get a balanced diet, so we are discriminating against them.
GROW UP PEOPLE!
you people are like Price Phillip, ban Mcdonalds, but when his food companies products were reviewed for nutritional value, a Big Mac was more healthful than anything in his line of products.Healthful is only a concern when it doesn't conform to your sense of good taste.

@pksmash--AGREED!!! how can the schools expect to regulate what goes on off their property if they won't fix what's inside their doors already? School lunches are not far from being fast food themselves. And we all know we need more laws and regulations to make all our life decisions for us, no matter how minor they are. By treating fast food like it's mysterious and forbidden, we make it more appealing to kids. Just teach them the value of moderation and good food.

1/10th of a mile?! They ought to make it 5 miles, that way if a kid really wants a burger, he/she will have walked it off by the time they get back to the school!

I think banning fast food from near schools is a silly waste of time.

we are in the era of "it's not my fault",your children are fat because it's too easy for YOU to have them plop their fat rear ends in front of the tv or computer and let those contraptions entertain them instead of YOU going outside with them with a ball and doing YOUR job as a parent to ensure that YOUR children grow up healthy. stop blaming fast food joints for YOUR inability to raise children properly.

I'm all for healthier alternatives, and if the same people who do the banning do the organizing and have some affordable healthy places open up, that's great. That being said, I would have freaked out if someone tried to take away my Pizza Hut lunch buffet when I was in school. Jerks.

I agree with those who say schools should have closed campuses, not just because of the junk food issue, but because all the jaywalking students in our town cause at least 2 or 3 traffic accidents a day.

I agree with all the people who said that kids have to learn to make healthy choices. Banning fast food doesn't teach kids anything, and like several people said, a lot of sit-down restaurants are worse for you anyway (compare nutritional stats at the Cheesecake Factory vs. Chick-fil-A for example). Provide healthy options too, and hope that parents make an effort to instill some healthy habits in their kids, and maybe when those kids grow up and get out in the real world they'll actually know how to feed themselves.

my lunch every day at school that i bothered to buy it there: bagel, cream cheese, milk from carton. it was $1.25. i dont know how much off the dollar menus i could handle (and have a drink)...

This will work about as well as banning drugs in the US.

"Land of the Free" does not mean fat-free, sugar-free, and sodium-free.

This reminds me of my upstate NY high school (class of '72) which had an open campus. It was one of the few saving graces of that miserable place, with it's burned-out staff and underacheiving students, and it made my experience there much more bearable than if I had been forced to put up with the barely-under-control, grimly institutional cafeteria.

There was a pizza place right across the street, but my lunch companion and I would walk down to Carroll'ss, and have their grilled cheese and a soda, every single day. You may recall the Carroll's grilled cheese - a burger bun with the insides facing out, and a slice of processed cheese melted between them. Other vendors in proximity to the school were an office supply store that did as much business in candy as it did in typewriter ribbons and wite-out.

Those and many other temptations of every variety were accessible to us. You either succumbed to them to one degree or another, or you didn't. It was not the age of "helicopter parents" or bumper stickers that announce that your child (and everyone else's) is an Honor Student. We survived and even thrived.

The schools here do not require Physical Education. Also the technology of computers has put everyone in a sedentary state. Myself, I eat what I want but I exercise. That does not say eating fast food is ok, however, perhaps schools should re-instate the PE requirement and teach nutrition as well.
We are globally considered an obese society. We received some company shirts the other day that were made in India. Even the medium sized ones could fit a small elephant, obviously this is a reflection on how they perceive Americans.

WHAT!? PE is not required!?

at my elementary school they forced us to run around in T-shirts and shorts (we had to change into athletic clothes every morning) in addition to PE classes. I hated the winter morning runs, but I guess they did earn a "healthiest kids award" or something...

Also from elementary to high school we had to clean our own rooms (when it's your group's turn to clean restrooms it makes kids unhappy). I'm guessing that doesn't happen in this country.

While I'm all about nutrition for kids (and in my universe it's organic and local)...I do believe in choice and democracy and freedom. That said...I didn't read all the posts but I'd love to hear from a progressive urban planner. As much as we might think things "just happen" in terms of what ends up where in a neighborhood, I do think there might be more to it than that. No conspiracy theories forming here but communities can have a say regarding what goes where and even limit the numbers and it's not considered particularly heinous...unless you're a Libertarian (big or small "L").

Spend the time, money and energy to improve school lunches, get gardens in the schoolgrounds (even window boxes or green roof gardens), have curriculum related to these subjects to support it, get the PTA on board to help parents have their kids eating healthier, watch the movie "Two Angry Moms" and when you're about to blow your head off from dealing with school officials, employees and parents (trying to change the system) who think it's just fine and dandy to live on fried, processed "food-like" substances (because they eat it and that's what they serve their families)...make the bag lunch, be a good example for your kids at home, and move on.

Why are we, as a society, allowing such poor quality food (and I'm not talking about the taste) to exist and be consummed. There is a serious problem when low quality and nearly-poisonous "foods" are targeted to low income groups (students, neighborhoods) because they're cheap. Well of course, they're cheap! You get what you pay for... and worse, you'll keep on paying for it with your health.... Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, Obesity. Shouldn't we be supporting and defending companies that take pride in their quality foods? Moe importantly, fast foods and soft drinks should be banned INSIDE of our schools. Students should have healthy options -- at least in one area of their lives!