You are what you serve: are school districts liable for serving unhealthy food and beverages to students?

∗ J.D. Candidate 2004, Seton Hall University School of Law; B.A. 1989, Barnard College, Columbia University. 1 PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, THE SURGEON GENERAL’S CALL TO ACTION TO PREVENT AND DECREASE OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY XIII (2001) [hereinafter CALL TO ACTION]; see also Press Release, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NHLBI’s Framingham Heart Study Finds Strong Link Between Overweight/Obesity and Risk for Heart Failure (July 31, 2002) (on file with author) [hereinafter Press Release, NIH]; Cara B. Ebbeling et al., Childhood Obesity: Public Health Crisis, Common Sense Cure, 360 THE LANCET 473 (2002); Centers for Disease Control, Obesity Trends 1991– 2001 Prevalence of Obesity Among U.S. Adults by State, available at http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/prev_reg.htm (showing the Center for Disease Control’s statistics for the prevalence of and trends towards the spread of the obesity epidemic by state and by region) (last visited Mar. 15, 2004). 2 CENTER FOR NUTRITION POLICY AND PROMOTION, U.S. DEP’T OF AGRICULTURE, CHILDHOOD OBESITY: CAUSES & PREVENTIONS, SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS 8 (1998), available at http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/Seminars/obesity.PDF. 3 OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PLANNING AND EVALUATION, U.S. DEP’T