Chocolate Milk

There has been a lot of talk about the problem of unhealthy food in schools. People have been struggling to implement healthier food in school lunches and the vending machines in schools for a number of years. My dad is a dentist and he has worked adamantly to make sure that pop machines were not turned on during school hours in Bloomington. It is obvious that the types of food children are eating today play a significant role in the higher levels of obesity, diabetes, and teeth/gum health issues like cavities. On the other hand it is also obvious that the higher levels of obesity and diabetes in our nation is due to the fact that we have affinity to technology, t.v., video games, computers, and sedentary lifestyles. I think that if we are going to accurately address our nations health crisis, we need to attack the problem from all sides. This includes encouraging more exercise as well as healthier diets.

In class a few weeks we discussed a controversial competition in which Decorah students were encouraged to drink more chocolate milk than other competing schools. Our class discussed many valid points about why this is problematic. This competition encouraged mass consumption of a beverage that is extremely high in sugar content and at the same time discouraged the consumption of normal (healthier) milk. On top of this, the argument presented by the organizers of this competition described chocolate milk as healthier than Gatorade. Perhaps we should not be comparing things to Gatorade however because Gatorade is not healthy in the first place. That is like saying we should have a competition to encourage high schoolers to smoke as many cigarettes as possible because cigarettes are better than crack. It's a pretty silly argument. If this competition is to encourage more consumption of milk by students then this honorable but why not encourage the consumption of white milk as well instead of a competition focused solely on the consumption of chocolate milk. Likewise, this sort of competition may perpetuate the idea in kids that there needs to be a reward for doing something beneficial (i.e. prize for drinking milk) or else it is not worthwhile.