I used to like Jamie Oliver. Maybe I will again. But since he convinced the Los Angeles Unified School District to ban flavored milk based on its "high sugar content," I officially think he's a complete idiot. This is why: Oliver went out of his way to demonstrate the evils of chocolate and strawberry milk on his ABC show Food Revolution by filling an entire school bus with sand and likening the vast quantity to the amount of added sugar LA students consume every year in flavored milk alone, one serving of which apparently has the same amount of sugar as a candy bar (between 20 and 27 grams). But guess what? The fruit juice served by the same school cafeterias contains 27 to 29 grams of sugar, and nobody's banning those bevvies.
Even weirder, while I've never heard a pediatrician encourage parents to give their kids juice (unless it's fresh squeezed or has medicine hidden in it or something), I have heard many pediatricians encourage parents to resort to flavored milk if it's the only way they can get their kids to drink milk at all. That would be because milk has very helpful things in it like calcium and protein, while the average juice box packs all the calories of flavored milk but next to no nutritional punch. So, which is the drink that's supposedly contributing to our country's childhood obesity epidemic?
Well, in my opinion, neither. Here's a newsflash nobody is going to like hearing: Apple juice and chocolate milk aren't making your kids fat! If that were the case, kids would have been developing diabetes en masse way before now. Think about what people ate in the 1950s! Meatloaf, Wonder Bread, root beer floats. We weren't a nation of fatties then. What gives?
I'm not pretending to have all the answers. I can't tell you how we should tackle this country's current health crisis. But I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that turning flavored milk into contraband ain't gonna do it.
Do you think the ban on flavored milk in schools is crazy?
Image via edenpictures/Flickr
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Comments 37
How is a meal that is served at school a parents decision? It's not like they're banning kids from bringing it in their lunches, they're just not going to offer them in the TAXPAYER subsadised milk. With that logic they should offer soda and milkshakes.
Did you actually see that episode with the sugar bus or did you just hear about it from somewhere? He filled it with sugar, overfilled it actually. The bus was buried up to its wheels.. And it was ONE WEEK worth of sugar, not a year.
Not to mention that fruit sugars are better for you than white sugar. Every fruit has "sugars" in it; grains are high in carbohydrates (read: sugars). Are we banning those from our kids? No, because they're the kinds of sugars our body NEEDS.
Good on LASD for their ban. Hopefully other districts follow suit. Kids will still drink milk.. Or juice.. Or water.. And any of those is a healthier choice than flavoured milk.
I firmly believe the more you tell kids and adults that they CAN'T have something, the more determined they will be to consume it. Having said this, I never eat school lunch and it has NOTHING to do with nutritional value (one meal out of the day is not going to make someone fat) instead the "gross" factor. My own kids are allowed to buy once a week if they choose and I have taught them that you want to avoid the Friday before a holiday and the week leading up to any extended break. I couldn't care less what they eat for that one meal. They pack their own lunches the rest of the time and the only thing that I actually require is juice (cue disgust). I know they need a little sugar after lunch to get back in the groove. None of my kids are overweight and they all three are in the honor's program. Shockingly, I attribute the being in shape to BEING ACTIVE, not the government regulating food. Add this to my list of things that need to be left to the individual schools and parents to decide. Stop trying to regulate and change things just because we are trying to save everyone from themselves. One meal a day, no matter what it consists of, does not constitute obesity. NOT exercising does!
I am against government intervention in my life... however, I have to admit that there are a great number of families out there that, to the detriment of their children, do not care enough to make good choices. They allow their children sugar-filled drinks day in and day out. They do not give them 'good' foods nor teach them to eat vegetables and whole grains. They pamper them with crap or appease their love of sugars with junk foods.
It saddens me that because of those that cannot take care of themselves and their children- the rest of us suffer the consequences of having to deal with programs such as this. Yes, they have the 'right' to do as they wish- but until they are willing to accept the risks that go with that 'right' I'm willing (as a tax payer) to forgo flavored milks in the school.