Republican state senators on Tuesday held a press conference on a package of nutrition bills that aim to “Make Texas Healthy Again,” imitating the rhetoric of new U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “Make America Healthy Again.”
Brenham Republican Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, led the conference with the co-authors of her legislation and the authors of the other two bills that make up the Senate package, Bryan Hughes of Mineola and Mayes Middleton of Galveston.
She explained that the group’s legislation would aim to supplement President Trump’s executive order earlier this month establishing a Make America Healthy Again Commission, citing the U.S.’s low life expectancy and poor health outcomes compared to most other European countries.
Kolkhorst’s bill, Senate Bill 25, would require daily physical education classes for students, require updated nutrition training for Texas physicians and medical students, require food labels to indicate which ingredients are banned in other countries and establish a state nutrition advisory council.
“This is for our children, and this is for our grandchildren,” Kolkhorst said. “This is for all of us.”
Hughes’s SB 314 would ban seven dangerous chemicals in free or reduced cost lunches for public schoolkids in Texas, most of which are banned or heavily restricted in the European Union. Specifically, it would ban:
• Brominated vegetable oil
• Potassium bromate
• Propylparaben
• Azodicarbonamide
• Butylated hydroxyanisole
• Red dye 3
• Titanium dioxide
Those changes would affect the more than 3 million public school students who qualify for free or reduced cost lunch at more than 8,000 public schools in Texas, Hughes said.
Hughes, who also sits on the Senate health committee, filed the bill in November.
Yesterday, Rep. Caroline Harris Davila, R-Round Rock, filed an identical companion version of the bill in the House, House Bill 1290. She also spoke during Tuesday’s press conference.
Finally, Middleton’s SB 379 would aim to prevent food stamps from being used on energy drinks, sweetened or carbonated beverages, candy, chips and cookies.
“This is not a Republican thing. This is not a Democrat thing. This is an American thing,” Kolkhorst said.
Health influencers from around the country spoke during the press conference in favor of the bills, including Calley Means, who has spoken out against poor nutrition on Fox News and for PragerU. He emphasized that the bills are a bipartisan effort.
“I’m a conservative,” said Means. “And a lot of people ask, a lot of the media asks, ‘Well, isn’t this just like Michelle Obama’s [Let’s Move fitness campaign], isn’t this just like [New York City’s] soda taxes?’ No, this is the Texas way. This is not partisan at all. This is bipartisan.”
“What these bills are asking is how do we educate people? How do we inspire kids? How do we inspire them about exercise?” Means added. “How do we get to the truth? How do we make sure our corrupt medical incentives don’t infect medical education to where no doctor’s even learning about the root cause of disease?”
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services is scheduled to hear Kolkhorst’s and Hughes’s bills on this topic tomorrow morning, but Middleton’s bill is not on the agenda.
The committee will meet at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning in the Senate Chamber. A livestream of the meeting can be accessed on the senate website.
