Beverage Industry Adopts Voluntary Limits on School Sales

Responding to the growing rate of childhood obesity, the nation’s leading beverage producers, including the Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., have approved voluntary guidelines that would prohibit the sale of all soft drinks in elementary schools and restrict their availability in middle and high schools.

The board of the American Beverage Association, whose members collectively sell 85 percent of the soft drinks in the school vending market, approved the policy on Aug. 16. Under the guidelines, producers would provide elementary schools with only water and 100 percent juice, and middle schools with nutritious and low-calorie drinks, including water, sports drinks, and fruit juices as well as no-calorie soft drinks. In high schools, no more than 50 percent of the selections in vending machines could be regular or diet soft drinks.

“We believe this policy is a sensible approach that addresses the issues unique to the school environment,” the trade group’s president, Susan K. Neely, said in announcing the guidelines at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Seattle on Aug. 17. “We understand that parents want more control over what their younger children consume in school, and we want to support...