Remove soda from Schools--HSI eAlert
You've GOT to be kidding me!
Remove sugar-laden soda pop from school vending machines and we'll be taking an important step in curbing childhood obesity - right?
Well, no, it's actually more like...wrong.
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Soda, soda everywhere...
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You probably heard the announcement last week, that former President Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association (AHA) brokered a deal to limit the sale of high-calorie, sugared soft drinks in elementary, middle and high schools. This was heralded by the media as a BIG deal. Finally! Someone is doing something about our ever-widening kids.
On one hand you could view this as a step in the right direction. It's not going to end childhood obesity, but it will remove part of the problem. Or will it?
Exceptions to the new "100-calorie" limit will be made for milk and other drinks with "higher nutritional value." Oh please! We'll never convince the AHA or school administrators that the milk moustache is anything but wholesome, in spite of all the antibiotics and bovine growth hormones found in commercial milk.
But what really got me riled up is that DIET soft drinks will still be available in high schools. Most of these diet drinks are sweetened with aspartame, which (according to a 1994 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) may cause adverse reactions that include chest pains, asthma, migraine headaches, insomnia, tremors, vertigo, and...weight gain.
Weight gain!
Given the choice, I think kids would be better off consuming sugar than aspartame. Or better yet - I know, this sounds like a crazy alternative, but hear me out - how about water? H2O! It's refreshing, thirst quenching and 100 percent free of calories, sugar, hormones and aspartame.
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Follow the money
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Here's the really telling detail of this new deal: Clinton and the AHA made their arrangement with soft drink companies, not school districts. They've appealed to Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes executives to show some restraint in how they stock school vending machines. But it's school administrators who allow soft drink distributors to put those machines on school property in the first place.
Maybe it's time for administrators to think about the kids and JUST SAY NO to soft drinks altogether. But they can't afford to do that because most school districts are already strapped for cash, especially with gas prices on the rise. (Those school buses don't run on switchgrass and corn. Not yet, anyway). So school districts need soft drink revenue now more than ever.
But all this ruckus about beverage access in schools is really a very small part of the obesity problem. Kids can always bring high calorie, fully sugared soft drinks from home. And many high schools allow students to leave campus for lunch. Good luck to Mr. Clinton and the AHA when they try to convince fast food restaurants to curb soft drink choices for kids.
And finally, there's still a problem back at school. When this new deal takes effect, high school kids will step up to the soft drink machines, choose milk, a sports drink or a diet soda, and then they'll move over to the snack machines where plenty of candy and pastry treats are still available.
If they're snacking on Mars bars and Ring Dings, a diet soda isn't going to do much to solve the obesity problem.
Remove sugar-laden soda pop from school vending machines and we'll be taking an important step in curbing childhood obesity - right?
Well, no, it's actually more like...wrong.
--------------------------------------------
Soda, soda everywhere...
--------------------------------------------
You probably heard the announcement last week, that former President Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association (AHA) brokered a deal to limit the sale of high-calorie, sugared soft drinks in elementary, middle and high schools. This was heralded by the media as a BIG deal. Finally! Someone is doing something about our ever-widening kids.
On one hand you could view this as a step in the right direction. It's not going to end childhood obesity, but it will remove part of the problem. Or will it?
Exceptions to the new "100-calorie" limit will be made for milk and other drinks with "higher nutritional value." Oh please! We'll never convince the AHA or school administrators that the milk moustache is anything but wholesome, in spite of all the antibiotics and bovine growth hormones found in commercial milk.
But what really got me riled up is that DIET soft drinks will still be available in high schools. Most of these diet drinks are sweetened with aspartame, which (according to a 1994 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) may cause adverse reactions that include chest pains, asthma, migraine headaches, insomnia, tremors, vertigo, and...weight gain.
Weight gain!
Given the choice, I think kids would be better off consuming sugar than aspartame. Or better yet - I know, this sounds like a crazy alternative, but hear me out - how about water? H2O! It's refreshing, thirst quenching and 100 percent free of calories, sugar, hormones and aspartame.
--------------------------------------------
Follow the money
--------------------------------------------
Here's the really telling detail of this new deal: Clinton and the AHA made their arrangement with soft drink companies, not school districts. They've appealed to Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes executives to show some restraint in how they stock school vending machines. But it's school administrators who allow soft drink distributors to put those machines on school property in the first place.
Maybe it's time for administrators to think about the kids and JUST SAY NO to soft drinks altogether. But they can't afford to do that because most school districts are already strapped for cash, especially with gas prices on the rise. (Those school buses don't run on switchgrass and corn. Not yet, anyway). So school districts need soft drink revenue now more than ever.
But all this ruckus about beverage access in schools is really a very small part of the obesity problem. Kids can always bring high calorie, fully sugared soft drinks from home. And many high schools allow students to leave campus for lunch. Good luck to Mr. Clinton and the AHA when they try to convince fast food restaurants to curb soft drink choices for kids.
And finally, there's still a problem back at school. When this new deal takes effect, high school kids will step up to the soft drink machines, choose milk, a sports drink or a diet soda, and then they'll move over to the snack machines where plenty of candy and pastry treats are still available.
If they're snacking on Mars bars and Ring Dings, a diet soda isn't going to do much to solve the obesity problem.
posted by Mrs.Cranky Yankee @ 1:58 PM
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