Just Say No: D.C. Needs to Man Up to Sugar and Flavored Milk in Schools
By Ed Bruske
Contributing Editor
One of the most disturbing things I saw during the week I spent in the kitchen at my daughter’s elementary school recently was all the sugar being served to children. From the Pop Tarts and Apple Jacks on the breakfast line, to the fruit juice, the chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk on constant display, to the fruit mix in “light syrup” offered with lunch, sugar is ever-present at H.D. Cooke Elementary. So it is in most public schools.
And we haven’t even begun to talk about all the birthdays and other celebrations and even everyday events where cookies and cakes and candy are commonly dished out at school. At a recent “family game night” at H.D. Cooke, every table had bowls of Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses for the taking. Sources for sugar seem to be everywhere, all the time: You can hardly spend an evening with the family without a dose of sugar.
In the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic, is it time to stand up to sugar and the empty calories it represents? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the rate of adolescent obesity in the District is the highest in the nation. Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler–who has battled his own weight issues–argues in a best-selling book embraced by Michelle Obama’s policy team that Americans are fat because they’re addicted to convenience foods laced with fat, salt, sugar. Should schools be enabling an addiction to sugar?
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