To the relief of many students across the state, a bill requiring only healthy food and drinks be served or sold in S.C. schools died in the General Assembly earlier this month.

But local educators and health professionals would like to see changes made anyway.

"For the benefit of our children, our schools should be providing what is in their best interest," said Devonda Gomez, a registered dietitian in Fort Mill. "We feed them the best education possible. We should be feeding them the best food possible."

Jeannie Jamieson, who teaches Foods and Nutrition at Indian Land High School, said most students' idea of lunch is high fat and high sugar. She tries to teach students about eating healthy and making good choices, but many students still choose to eat pizza and fries daily.

Students at ILHS have healthy foods to choose from daily. Fresh fruit, salads, bottled water and 100 percent fruit juices are always on the school's menu. But pizza and fries also are available every day.

You have to have a balance, said Mary Thompson, Lancaster County School District's director of food services.

"They have French fries, but they are fried in vegetable oil," Thompson said. "High school kids won't come in if they don't have their French fries."

The Lancaster County School District instituted a wellness policy during the 2006-'07 school year that dramatically changed menus and vending machine offerings. It dictates that the cafeteria will provide students with meals equaling one-third of their daily nutritional value of protein and nutrients, including Vitamin A and iron. Vending machines that once contained sodas now have healthier choices, including fruit juices and bottled water.

At Indian Land High School, sugary sodas in vending machines have been replaced with diet sodas.

Gomez said even diet sodas should be eliminated from schools.

"Should we have our children drinking sodas at all?" Gomez asked. "Does anything good come from a diet soda?"

Sophomore Stacey Taylor said that she usually eats pizza for lunch and would be upset to see it taken out of the school. Other students, like Riley Porter, a junior, said that he'd just find something else to eat.

Porter suspects most of the unhealthy food, like onion rings and French fries, are actually baked and not fried.

"It's not the healthiest, but it's not the worst," Porter said.

In Fort Mill, where every school has at least one vending machine, the machines in the elementary and middle schools are off limits to students during the school day. Students at Nation Ford and Fort Mill high schools do have access to drink and snack machines during the day, however.

The machines, which carry a variety of "healthy and bad snacks" and drinks, according to e-mails from various school principals and staff, also dispense serious revenue.

In the elementary schools the drink and snack machines are located in or near the teachers' lounges. They bring in $170 to more than $2,000 in revenue each year for the schools.

The middle schools have between three and six machines each. Students are only allowed to access the machines after school hours. In addition to sodas, the drink machines also stock water, fruit juices and sports drinks. The snack machines are stocked with low fat items that meet the district's approved nutrition choices guidelines, and include fruit snacks, Nutrigrain bars and crackers among other options. The machines in the middle school bring in $1,200 to $1,600 in revenue each year.

At the high school level, as many as 15 vending machines are stocked around campus. They offer the same types of drink and snack choices as the machines at the middle and elementary levels. The machines in Fort Mill High alone have brought in more than $44,000 this year, according to FMHS Principal Dee Christopher.

"This money is spent in a variety of ways, from campus improvements to professional travel," Christopher wrote in an e-mail. "We also use these funds to supplement teacher and office supplies."

One of his students, Kacey Griffin, prefers one of the healthier snacks offered from a FMHS vending machine, but she doesn't think junk food should be legislated away.

"I like goldfish, because their just the right amount and they're not too salty, not too sweet," she said.

"I don't think the bill would stop people from eating junk food," Griffin added. "People will find a way to sell stuff. The people who are trying to enforce the bill are going about it the wrong way. Parents are just trying to take away vending machines because they feed their children unhealthy foods and they are now making their kids pay for the consequences."

She said she only spends .75 cents a week on her snack and that "I try to whatch what I eat because eating habits I have now will continue on when I'm older."

• KateLynn Racer and Lauren Johnson contributed to this story.