neighborhoods. my last point our that the u.s. surgeon general also is focusing on reducing the child obesity crisis in our country, and he is raising concerns that high blood pressure and wheat-related conditions like type ii diabetes, which has -- as a practicing physician he says he used to see only in adults, but he is seeing more and more in children, and if the childhood obesity epidemic remains unchecked, he says it will condemn many of our kids to shorter lives as well as the emotional and financial burdens off for health. that is why i say there's nothing more important than our children. this is a modest effort that will help create healthier choices for our children and families.

to wrap up, i wanted to say that this legislation encourages the restaurants in san francisco, including fast food restaurants that offer on healthier meals, to offer healthier options with incentive toys. the examples i have up here are based on the joy that my daughter has had in dragging me to mcdonald's and burger king, talk about, and kfc, but i am someone who is a consumer, but i think the least that the industry can do is create healthier standards that need basic nutritional standards for our kids. it is about the future of our children and our community posey held as well. i just wanted to thank you for coming out, and i look forward to the discussion today.

before we call up the deputy director of our department of public health, supervisor maxwell, can we call a couple of parents that need to leave and open up for public comment right now? many parents that have come out or children not want to speak on the issue. i know there are a number of them. -- children that want to speak on the issue. thank you so much for waiting. i know you have to leave very soon. i mentioned i mentionedjameela -- i mentioned earlier that jameela from the food guardians had to leave. >> i live in san francisco, and i work in the bayview and hunters point district. i urge you to support the healthy foods incentive, and

here are my reasons why -- research analyzing children's meals at major restaurant chains found that many that exceed the recommended calorie intake in the study came with toys. this is very difficult for me as a mother of four. every day when passing by my dolls, -- passing by mcdonald's, we have to throw something over my daughter's eyes. she sees the sun coming gets excited, and throws a tantrum. this is overwhelming and time consuming and traumatizing for my daughter. she already has a chronic illness -- asthma. she is at risk for type ii diabetes. this is traumatizing, and she wants that way, and the toy that comes in that unhealthy happy meal becomes a price for the

community as a whole. diabetes can result in a loss of 10 or 15 years of life, as stated by the centers of disease control and prevention. overall, the problem has a domino effect, and it takes a toll on the parents with the nonstop in emergency business, and affecting their everyday life and well-being. it is the responsibility of the community to make a voice to speak against the health disparities in the community. thank you. supervisor mar: thank you so much. ms. marshall. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is jessica marshall. i am a food guardian. i am here to urge you to support the healthy food initiative ordinance. as a food guardian, we encourage healthy eating lifestyles and work on food dressing.

our communities are suffering from obesity, diabetes, anemia like myself, and other diet- related issues that keep me and my community at risk of having poor health and lower quality of life. fast food ads are aimed at our children all day. someone should be responsible for making a healthier option available for the kids. i would like the choice to come with a healthy meal to encourage healthy eating habits for our children so that children can make better choices as they grow on what they choose to eat. please support this order is for our children -- support this ordinance for our children to leave more active, better lives. mar --supervisor mar: were there any other parents here that have

to leave? i want to continue to say that i have given out four minor amendments in language, and at the end, my hope is that we continue this for one week so we can have even more input from the industry, but also from neighborhoods and health advocate. the minor amendments i will just read into the record are -- what is we have removed all references to a single food items so it is focused on the meal itself. before i get to these young food guardians and their teacher, the second amendment is in line with the usda standards, but also influenced by the institutes of medicine recommendation, but we have decreased the number or the amount of vegetables from 3/4 of a cup of vegetables to the usda requirement, i believe, of 0.5 cups of vegetables. that is on page eight, line

three. the third is because vegetables may not typically be served at breakfast -- and i know that is a high of one for me and my kids -- we added the language that it could be 0.5 cups of fruit or vegetables, so it could be either/or fruits or vegetables at breakfast time. the fourth amendment is a minor one, and i thank the industry for adding that one, that we add the will to grain requirement, a suggestion that our department of health officials were in agreement with, so even making it a healthier, happier effort and meal. we have a number of young voices that are here, and we also have their brave teacher, eileen

woods. what i was most impressed with are the young people and how bright and intelligent, and they are the new leaders of the future. ms. woods, could i just ask for you to comment? >> i have been a parent for over two decades and a teacher for nearly three, four children in grades preschool through high school. there's a lot of truth to the saying you are what you eat. if we care about children and their education, we should care about what they put into their bodies. i have seen firsthand house to the behavior, energy, and attitudes decline after eating fast-food meals. they do not function well in the classroom or a playground after such a meal. after such a mill, students are lethargic and apathetic or high wire and disrupted from the sugar. children are bombarded with messages about healthy food from the time they wake up in the morning until they go to bed at

night, so much of it is centered on toy giveaways. we have had to un-teach the healthy eating get -- the on healthy eating habits of our students that have become hooked on junk food. combining an unhealthy food with a toy reward undermines the efforts of educators to teach children healthier eating habits for healthier lifestyles. i taught one african-american seventh-grade girl already of these by age 12 who was enticed by the affordability, convenience, and 20 reward offered by mcdonald's. if she was not absent from school with a stomach ache, she was late with her egg mcmuffin, looking forward to her mcdonald's dinner. she slept during class. the price seems right for a toy and a quick meal until the cost of her health became like that in theory disadvantaged by poverty, she and her mother were easy prey for the fast-food industry.

there is no such thing as a free meal. while you may not pay a lot of the counter, you pay in health- related diseases symptomatic of a fast-food diet. this girl with tremendous potential may never realize the. i am here with my students who came to show their concern about this important social justice children's health issue. supervisor mar: thank you so much. i really appreciate all the children here as well. >> they're just here to remind us that it is their bodies, and it is our future. supervisor mar: thank you. there is another group of mothers and parents that are here that say they have to leave. i think they are in the overflow room as well. [reading names]

a number of them are from the women's collective of la raza central. hillary ronan is from supervisor david campos' office. thank you very much, gracias, for being here. >> [speaking spanish]

>> i have worked for over 20 years in the community. i think this legislation is very important, especially for black teen mothers. i work with latino mothers and families to get home and are very tired and purchase fast food. >> [speaking spanish] >> as immigrant families with little time, we run to the first food that we can find, and often times, this food is fast food. we are finding our children are every day more and more obese.

we support this legislation that is co-bonds of by supervisors mar, chiu and campos so that our children have access to a healthier foods. >> gracias. supervisor mar: thank you. >> thank you. >> [speaking spanish]

>> i am a member of the women's collective. i want to thank supervisors mar, chiu, and campos for sponsoring the legislation. i am obese, and i do not want my children to come obese. i want our children to have access to salads instead of hamburgers, to fruit, to milk. we oftentimes have only access to fast foods, and especially foods that offer toys because these are the type of toys we are able to afford for our children, but we want these toys to come with healthy foods. supervisor mar: thank you.

>> [speaking spanish]

>> hello, thank you. i urge you to support this legislation, especially for people like me, single mothers. we want options. we often have no choice but to feed our children mcdonald's and burger king. we want there to be healthy food options at these places. we want more nutritious food. it is not that we do not want to cook in our homes, but oftentimes, we are working so hard and so late that we have no choice but to get fast food. we see that our children are getting fatter, and at the same time, they are also anemic, so we are hoping there is change, that we add more nutritious options. >> [speaking spanish]

>> thank you so much for taking and caring about our children. thank you also to mothers who are here advocating on behalf of the nutritional needs of their children. i volunteer in my child's school, and i m seeing that more and more nurses at lunch are supervising the diet for the children because there is so much diabetes in our schools. >> [speaking spanish]

>> i am here from the women's collective. i am a single mother, an immigrant single mother of low means, and for me, this legislation is very important because i take my children to these types of food establishments, and i wish they would offer healthy and nutritious foods, as a thank-you to those supervisors who support this legislation, and i urge those other supervisors to please join them. thank you. >> [speaking spanish]

>> i'm very supportive of this legislation. i thank those supervisors who are also supporting this legislation. as you know, our children are our future, and we need to make sure they are healthy, so thank you. >> [speaking spanish]

>> i am a member of the women's collective, and i do not want my children to grow up with diabetes, and i do not want them to be obese. it is a wonderful thing if our restaurants would provide healthier food options, and it is not important whether or not they offer toys. i support this legislation, and i asked for your vote. please support the three people who are thinking about our children. mar -- supervisor mar: gracias, thank you. >> [speaking spanish]

>> thank you. what i want is that they replace the french fries with slices of apple, and i want them to place more vegetables on the hamburger and use wheat bread so there are more options for our children. supervisor mar: thank you very much. i know we have about 50 speaker cards here, and i wanted to invite the deputy director to come up and just make remarks. thank you for being here. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

i think we all know that physical activity and access to good attrition are the building blocks for healthy communities, and incentivizing good food and good choices for families is going to be essential, and i think that is kind of the essence of your legislation. our health commission has tabled the discussion. the wanted to hear the outcomes of the hearing and also the outcomes of your conversations with mcdonald's. there are standards that the institute of medicine has developed that she has discussed with mcdonald's, regarding some of their goals for school lunches, which are to increase vegetables, manage the amount of calories, and to manage the amount of fat and sodium, and i think that as a health the conversation we will continue to have, and we look forward to the hearing today, and your future negotiations. thank you so much.

>> good afternoon, supervisors. i want to spend the time to clarify the origin of the standard that you passed in the healthy meals for kids. first, want to go one of the points that you are making -- i want to echo one of the points that you are making. there is a good point that links the frequency of fast-food consumption did diabetes in adulthood, and one of the longest that is with the children for over 50 years can confirm this finding, so there is a strong scientific basis for taking action. the institute of medicine was funded by the -- founded by the department of agriculture to

develop nutrition standards for schools. those recommended it rational standards are the building blocks of this ordinance, the standards in this ordinance. you mentioned a number of them. limits on calories, sodium, and that, as well as requirements for whole grains, vegetables, and fruits. the standards represent the best scientific thinking of what the average meal should look like. i think it is important to note that these standards are currently not implemented by the usda, but there has been a cyclic process with the institute of medicine development standards and the usda making those as regulations and schools complying. the current regulations with which schools comply are not too far off from the institute of medicine recommendations. i think it is important to note

that schools in this country, the public schools, that the industry would be following the work of the schools. schools have already taken a great degree of leadership in implementing nutrition standards for children. i think it shows that this is feasible and can be done. even with the tricky area of vegetables, if you go to an elementary school in san francisco, you will see how the school district with very little money has been able to encourage -- provide and encourage the consumption of vegetables by children, and maybe the industry can also look at the examples as sort of a source of research across the country. finally, i think that -- i do not believe that nutrition standards or standards associated with the incentive or

toy are something prompted by the industry. i think parents do want healthy choices. i, as a parent of two children, what healthy choices for my kids. i did not think the industry has -- i do not think the industry has an interest in making obese children. we're trying to understand what about the recommended standards are difficult and why. how long would it take. we want this to work. we want it to be feasible, and we are interested in learning how we can make this ordinance feasible, and we are proud to be part of this ground-breaking discussion. i'm happy to be part of this discussion. supervisor mar: i want to thank you for your innovative and enlightened work. it has helped in light and me and my staff tremendously. thank you. -- it has helped enlighten me and my staff tremendously. i wanted to invite karen wells

from the mcdonald's corporation, their chief nutritionist, and scot robert from roderick foods, and james durant from the hispanic chamber of commerce to comment. >> good afternoon. my name is karen wells, and one of my most treasured roles is that as a mother of two children, so i certainly take their well being very seriously, but i am also vice president of nutrition and many strategy, and i am here on behalf of mcdonald's in opposition to the proposed ordinance and respectfully ask you not recommend its passage because it undermines parental authority as well as responsibility and will not contribute to the improvement of children's health, new edition, and well being. i commend you on some of the amendments you have made,

different than what we look earlier, but deny a child a toy is not the solution to the very important subject of children's well-being and child would obesity. we have not found support or science or nutrition guidance or consumer behavior that would support that, and a fair and objective review of our menu shows that mcdonald's is committed to children's well- being and working to be part of the solution. many of the things we heard the parents say today about offering food like we do with our apple's efforts like we do with our caramel dipped and salads like we do with our side salads and premium chicken salads. many of the efforts we have done, just to name a few points to our commitment. we encourage and we continue to develop more choice and variety. we are currently testing a new happy meal option in several markets around the country that include a fruit in every happy meal.

unfortunately, none of these have been nil bundles would meet the proposed ordinance and nutrition criteria because they did not contain the proposed 3/4 cup of vegetables. mcdonald's for your best piece chicken nugget happy meal and apple dippers and low-fat milk would meet this standard, barring the vegetable criteria, and this is also a bill advertise to children. in conclusion, we are looking for ways -- we thank you for your support. supervisor mar: you can continue if there are other points. we would just like to have you elaborate on the points you were making. >> just to conclude, we believe in giving our customers a right to choose, and parents are telling us that it is their decision what they want to feed their children and not necessarily in the hands of legislators. those of the points we want to make, and if there's questions, we would be happy to answer them. supervisor maxwell: