FAIRBANKS, Alaska – The federal “Smart Snacks” regulations imposed on schools this year are exacerbating declining vending machine sales in the Fairbanks school district.

Board members discussed declining vending machine sales at a recent school board meeting, where district CFO Mike Fisher said revenue had dropped by 71 percent in the last 10 years, and the new rules are only making matters worse, newsminer.com reports.

The revenue, which is used to fund sports teams and extracurricular activities, went from $233,000 in 2003 to a paltry $64,000 last year in the district’s high schools. And sales at Lathrop High School in particular plummeted from $88,000 to $19,000 over the same time frame.

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The significant revenue loss is tied to the district’s self-imposed rules on the nutritional aspects of school vending sales, but is getting worse thanks to the federal Smart Snack rules that went into effect this year as part of the Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act – Michelle Obama pet project, school officials said.

The federal snack restrictions set thresholds on school snack sales based on calorie count, fat content, salt content, and other nutritional aspects of food and drinks sold during the school day – which the federal government defines as midnight until 30 minutes after school lets out.

Six years ago the district consolidated its vending services to one company – Aurora Vending – while at the same time imposing restrictions on calories, fat, and sugar in food and drinks sold in the machines.

“Under the new guidelines the mix is being constricted even more,” Bart Grahek, the district’s director of procurement and warehousing, told newsminer.com. “They (Aurora Vending) have already seen that both with the limited hours they’re able to operate the machines and the limited product mix that’s available in the machines revenues are going to be down considerably.”

“It’s really unfortunate because the revenue was so beneficial – when we talk about vending – was so beneficial to our extra-curricular activities in our schools,” Heidi Hass, Fairbanks school board president, said, according to the news site.

Several states, including Georgia, Colorado and others, have applied for exemptions from the federal school snack laws, which allow schools to sell snacks without restrictions during certain times of the year. Georgia’s exemptions, for example, effectively allow schools to sell whatever they want during about half the school year.

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But Fairbanks schools’ nutrition services director Amy Rouse said Alaskan bureaucrats have no intention on seeking such exemptions, newsminer.com reports.

“If there’s any change or action that can be taken at this time it needs to start from grass roots and everybody needs to contact their representatives in Congress because the smart snack regulation is the result of (Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act authorization),” she said.

Some commenters on the News Miner story believe the nutritional restrictions aren’t making kids healthier, and are instead driving students to purchase their “unhealthy” snacks elsewhere.

“The money is still being spent, most kids either bring their own unhealthy snacks, or get them at local stores around schools. West has a McDonalds across the road and a gas station that are heavily used by local students,” Brian Lotze pointed out.

“I am not saying that getting more healthy snacks isn’t a good idea, but they aren’t being eaten and the kids are still eating the bad stuff just spending the money at a place that doesn’t support the schools or even the town in some instances,” he posted to Facebook. “I listened to the school board discuss the issue, and the focus wasn’t that the snacks were bad, but that they weren’t being eaten, the kids were still buying the bad stuff and the programs … that benefited from the revenue were suffering.”

Fairbanks resident Jenn Rupert Matz seemed to agree with Lotze.

“It is not the school’s job to keep kids healthy. There’s nothing wrong with an occasional treat and usually people have looked to vending machines for that treat,” she posted to Facebook. “People aren’t going to pay $1 for a thing of fruit snacks when they can spend a bit more at the store and get more product.”

This student summed up the situation with a simple picture: