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Don't sell sodas at schools
Guest Opinion by Dan Taylor
Pleasanton Weekly, Sept 5, 2003
As a health promotion professional that has
worked with children to help them avoid
excess calorie consumption and the related
health risks of obesity and diabetes, I must
strongly disagree with the position you take
in your editorial of Aug. 29, "Sodas may be
bad for teens, but is school ban worse?"
By questioning the rationale of excluding
chocolate milk and fruit juice, which also
contain sugar, from the school ban on
selling soda on school campuses, you imply
that they are nutritionally comparable. They
are not. Sodas contain, ounce for ounce,
more than five times the sugar of fruit
juice and almost none of the micronutrients
(vitamins and minerals) in juice or milk.
Additionally, milk contains protein not
found in sodas.
According to a study referenced on the
Harvard Medical School Web site, there
have been both significant increases in
children's daily consumption of
sugar-sweetened soda and a direct
correlation between the volume of that
increase and children's risk of obesity in
recent years.
The reason that fast food and sodas are high
profit items is because they are
mass-produced and the primary ingredients
(fat and sugar, respectively) are very cheap
and nutritionally poor for the calories they
provide, whereas more healthful food is
generally more labor-intensive and subject
to spoilage as it is often prepared fresh.
Is this a good reason to endorse pizza and
cola as an on-campus fund-raising mechanism
for our children?
My biggest problem with the practice of
selling these foods on campus is that it
seems to be in conflict with the important
symbolism that exists inside the school
boundaries. The environment is and should be
a reflection of the philosophies and values
we hold dear in the community. If our
schools are to be institutions that not only
uphold but also model examples of sound
judgment, can we in good conscience justify
advocating this high-yield, but of
questionable value, source of school
funding?
The real issue is not whether soda is bad or
good, but whether or not the message we want
to send to our children is that what is best
is more important than what is convenient.
With two children of my own and after
working with numerous child clients and
doing volunteer work with the kids at Donlon
Elementary, I can say with confidence that
what we do teaches the children much more
than what we say.
Dan Taylor lives in Pleasanton and is a
certified fitness trainer who provides
fitness training and general nutritional
guidance to clients in their homes in
Pleasanton and the Tri-Valley area. |
