1. Copycat Snacks: What you Need to Know
Kids spend the majority of their day at school. Schools should be places that support children to be healthy and achieve their full potential. Kids with healthy eating patterns are more likely to perform better academically; therefore it’s important that all school foods and beverages are healthy, including those sold to students separate from the National School Lunch and Breakfast Program.
USDA Smart Snacks set nutrition standards for snack foods and beverages sold to children in vending machines, school stores, snack carts, á la carte lines and in-school fundraising. Since Smart Snacks regulations went into effect Fall 2014, significant changes have been made to improve the types of foods and beverages available for students to purchase.
Promoting a Healthy Nutrition Environment
One element of a healthy school nutrition environment is the food marketing landscape. Kids are more likely to be influenced by marketing than adults. Reducing unhealthy food marketing directed at children can help prevent kids from choosing unhealthy food options now and later in life. Smart Snacks regulations have significantly improved the foods and beverages sold in schools, however there remain challenges, in particular copycat snacks.
Copycat snacks are popular snacks that have been reformulated to meet Smart Snacks standards, but still use the same brand names, logos, and spokescharacters that are used to market traditional junk food.1 Reformulation typically involves either lowering the calories, sugar, salt and/or fat content, while increasing the protein and/or whole grain content; or changing the serving/package size. Copycat snacks are a new form of branding that undermine nutrition education efforts by co-marketing junk food in schools.
Copycat snacks increase sales for food manufacturers as well as provide an opportunity to market their brand. Yet they deceive kids by conveying the message that these snacks are acceptable. Because these reformulated products are not widely available for purchase outside of schools and oftentimes look the same as the original version, it can be difficult to distinguish them from their traditional counterparts. One study found that kids think the copycat snacks they can buy in school are the same products that are sold in the stores.2
What Can You do to Support Healthy School Snacks?
Help to ensure your school is in compliance with Smart Snacks standards!
Check to make sure the foods and beverage available for students to purchase meet the Smart Snacks standards by using the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Smart Snacks Product Calculator.
Browse compliant products with the Alliance’s Smart Food Planner to get ideas for new products that your school can offer.
You can also help to strengthen requirements for foods and beverages available for students to purchase – remember, Smart Snacks regulations are minimum requirements that a school must follow – there’s always opportunity to make them stronger!
USDA finalized a rule that requires schools to include language in their Local Wellness Policies that permits only marketing of foods and beverages that meet Smart Snacks nutrition standards. Help spread the word about this ruling and share this USDA summary document with your school.
Schools can choose not to purchase copycat snacks. School food service directors can send a strong message to these companies that copycat snacks are not appropriate products for sale in schools by simply not procuring them.
Revise your district’s wellness policy to prohibit food companies marketing copycat snacks to children in schools.
Got questions? Ready for a change?
Contact [your designated wellness policy and/or CHSC coordinator’] for more information
[Phone]
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2. References
The Public Health Advocacy Institute. Copycat Snacks in Schools. May, Available at:
Harris J, Hyary M, Schwartz M. Effects of Offering Look-Alike Products as Smart Snacks in Schools. Childhood Obesity August Vol. X, No. X:1-8