Katie Couric: Samantha Heller is a clinical nutritionist at the New York University Medical Center and a contributor to Health magazine. Hi! Samantha. Good morning.

Samantha Heller: Hi.

Katie Couric: We should make it clear that this does not ban soft drinks completely. Excuse me. For elementary schoolers, nutritious drinks only and this means they can have water, and 100% juice drinks. For middle schoolers, diet soft drinks, water, sports drink, 100% juices, and low-calorie juice drinks are allowed. And for high schoolers, 50% of the vending machines' slots can be filled with soft drinks and the rest with water, juices, sports drinks and another, other non-carbonated drinks, which makes you wonder why people would pick the latter. They have the soft drinks available, so do these guidelines go far enough in your view?

Samantha Heller: You know they are stepping in the right directions, so we're happy about that, but I don't think they go far enough. But as you said, if, there's five choices of different sodas rather than ten, I.. that seems just a little lame to me. That doesn't make sense. I.., they , the children can still drink soda; and they don't really think we need soda in middle schools and high schools.

Katie Couric: Well, why do you, I mean, how responsible are these sodas for making kids fat? In other words, are they getting too much blame for their obesity epidemic or do you think it's warranted?

Samantha Heller: That's such a good question. The Beverage Association would say they're getting too much blame, but studies are showing that, there was a study that came out a few years ago that showed for every 12 ounce can of soda or sugar we drink, it increased the risk of being overweight for children 60%. So, yes, it is contributing to the obesity epidemic. And we really don't need to have soda in the schools, and it's not healthy. It's not nutritious, and there aren't other options for kids!

Katie Couric: But you know, some of the.., before we get to the other options, I'm just curious, what about diet beverages for kids? Because I know if we have soda in our house, it's usually diet soda. My kids don't drink much diet soda, but sometimes they do, and I'm kind of ambivalent about that as well, is that unhealthy for children?

Samantha Heller: That's a good question! The jury is out. Some studies are saying diet soda might increase the risk of children wanting to eat more and get their calories, or adults, other, in other places, but, that, that it is sketchy, the research is sketchy. Occasionally a diet soda is fine, but again what's happening is the soda is replacing diet regular, replacing healthier things like low fat milk, so the kids aren't getting the calcium and vitamin D they need, so it's a problem, it really in terms of that ,too.

Katie Couric: But what about some of the high sugar drinks, you know, even these are 100% fruit juices, for example, like apple juice or even orange juice. Well, they're healthy. I don't want the orange juice industry that start e-mailing me, but they're very high in sugar and calories, too, aren't they?

Samantha Heller: Well, we wanna 100% juice, we wanna it to be pasteurized, and we do wanna limit the amount, 8 to 12 ounces for, you know, teens and 4 to 6 ounces a day for younger folks. So we want them to have that 100% juice but we have to limit the quantity.

Katie Couric: And part of the problem is the schools get a big kickback, don't they? From the soda companies?

Samantha Heller: Well, I don't know if I'd say kickback.

Katie Couric: Alright, is that...?

Samantha Heller: They're called pouring rights.

Katie Couric: Oh, sorry.

Samantha Heller: And the companies pay huge amounts of money to the schools, to ad their products.

Katie Couric: They're an important source of revenue for the schools.

Samantha Heller: And it puts the school on a tough position, coz' the schools need the money for programs for the kids, so they have to sort of sell their souls in the sense to have the products of the company there. So we have to find other ways to help fund these great programs for school, sports, music, things like that.

Katie Couric: So bottom line, when it comes to introducing your kids to soda, you should probably try not to, really, when all of thisset and done, I mean, or certainly try to limit the amount of soda, their soda intake on a daily basis, (Yeah)coz' some of these kids are starting pretty young, ... soft drink.

Samantha Heller: I mean, you have children, right?

Katie Couric: Yes, I do.

Samantha Heller: Why would you wanna give a one or two-year- old, three-year- old soda? It doesn't make sense to me. There's no need for it.

Katie Couric: So I try to keep it out of the house in general, the Coca Cola and Pepsi people are gonna kill me, but in general,(Yeah), you should really try to be introducing healthier beverages.

Samantha Heller: That's right. You know, occasionally, as they get older, a soda is fine, but we don't wanna it to be a daily regularly part of the diet.

Katie Couric: Yes, a staple.

Samantha Heller: Right!

Katie Couric: Anyway, Samantha, thanks so much for coming in this morning. Nice to see you.