AUGUSTA – Thursday’s public hearing on a comprehensive nutrition and exercise bill has been canceled at the request of one of its sponsors. It has not been rescheduled yet.
The bill, based on recent recommendations by the Legislature’s Commission to Study Public Health, would make more than a dozen changes to the way schools deal with food and nutrition. Some changes would be modest, such as requiring at least 20 minutes for lunch in schools every day. Others would be more sweeping, such as prohibiting teachers from using food as incentives and mandating at least 2½ hours of exercise for students every week.
The bill would also ban the sale of certain foods on school grounds, require schools to track the body mass of students and require schools to post nutritional information about their food. It would also seek to determine whether Maine could legally restrict junk food advertisements geared to children.
The proposal is sponsored by Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, and co-sponsored by Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston. It was scheduled for a public hearing before the Legislature’s Education Committee on Thursday, but Martin asked that the hearing be postponed, according to legislative officials.
Martin could not be reached for comment.
The hearing is likely to be rescheduled in April, according to the legislative officials.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.