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A mother of three (her 25-year-old son is a Marine on duty in Iraq), Combs, 59, has been interested in children's issues since she was a young prosecutor in Dallas working child-abuse cases. When she became Texas agriculture commissioner in 1999, she noted the rise in childhood obesity but had the authority to do little besides tout healthy farm products. Her breaking point came, she says, at a school in San Marcos, when the principal explained why the school needed junk food in vending machines as an obese young boy sat right in front of him. "We have food chaos in our schools, with coaches selling food, moms selling food, PTAs selling, Project Graduation, the Kiwanis, and then there's the manufacturers trying to get into the schools to build brand loyalty," she says. One Lubbock grade school, she adds, even rolled carts with candy down the halls to sell to kindergartners. "The whole culture inside our schools is pervaded--invaded--by this marketing of food to the child. We put our financial needs ahead of their best interests," she says. "It's shocking."
But even a lifelong Republican in a Republican state can do only so much. At first Combs couldn't get the Texas legislature to limit vending-machine sales, but in 2003, working behind the scenes with Governor Rick Perry, she got the federally funded breakfast and lunch programs transferred from the Texas education agency to the agriculture department, giving her oversight of the outside vendors. Last March she announced the new policy on junk food, to be implemented when school began in August. Combs has made adjustments over the months since, backing down on a ban on sweets at birthday parties and allowing bake sales--although students can't eat their purchases until the last bell has rung. And while kids can still bring whatever they want for lunch from home--"If you want to send deep-fat-fried Twinkies every day, that's your business," says Combs--no sharing is allowed.
By cracking down on the parent bake sales as well as the corporate vending machines, Combs has avoided a plate-throwing confrontation with big contractors who bristled at the suggestion that their products were making kids fat. Some suppliers of prepared school lunches have even embraced new rules that set a weekly limit on the amount of fat and sugar in the meals. Food-service provider Aramark, for instance, offers popular dishes like penne Alfredo made with less fat. Pizza Hut has reconfigured its school pizza to meet the new fat requirements. Frito-Lay brought in baked chips rather than fried ones and cut portion sizes. Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestlé hustled in healthier new offerings too.
Early skeptics, from principals to PTA moms, are coming around to Combs' point of view, but it hasn't been painless. Richardson High School, north of Dallas, had to shut down its profitable Eagle Emporium, which sold candy that paid for VCRs in every room as well as sheet music for the choir. "As sad as I was to lose the money," says former PTA head Pat Epstein, "we don't need to be stuffing our kids with bad food." At Haggar Elementary School in nearby Plano, principal Vicki Aldridge mourned the loss of the Donuts for Dads events, but was pleasantly surprised when parents bought $800 worth of books for the school instead of spending the money on doughnuts and other sweets.