NYC Green Schools

Earlier this summer District of Columbia school officials decided to ban chocolate milk from their schools.  NYC Green Schools has proposed that New York City schools also get rid of chocolate milk as the daily consumption of sweetened drinks has no place in a child’s diet.  Proponents of flavored milk argue it’s the only way to get students to drink milk, which provides the calcium, protein and vitamin D children need.  But as Chef Ann Cooper has pointed out, “Saying we need to add sugar and flavoring to milk to get kids to drink it is like saying we need to feed kids apple pie if they don’t like apples.”

Here’s the truth about the chocolate milk served daily to NYC school children: it contains 22 grams of sugar, which is more sugar than half a can of coke, and it is sweetened with high-fructose corn-syrup which is listed as the second ingredient.  With 40% of NYC children either overweight or obese, why does the Department of Education’s Office of School Food still insist on chocolate milk, especially in light of its recent decision to eliminate Snapple drinks from school vending machines because of the irrefutable evidence linking the increased consumption of sugary drinks with the rising rates of childhood obesity?  One School Food official admitted to us that they are “in the business of food” and that chocolate milk sells.  We can only assume this is the same rationale of the dairy industry.  (Milk sold in schools makes up 7% of all milk sales in the country, and flavored milk constitutes 71% of the milk served in our nation’s schools).  Neither party wants to risk losing “business” by only serving plain white milk, even though this is clearly the healthier option for our children.

The high-fructose corn syrup in the chocolate milk also poses a health risk to students.  An article published last year in The Washington Post reported that “almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.”  In a prepared statement, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said, “Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered.”The renowned pediatrician Dr. William Sears has written a book called “The Nutrition Deficit Disorder Book,” in which he explains that because high fructose corn syrup does not occur in nature, the body may not know how to process it.  Some researchers have expressed concern that the extra fructose in HFCS might be metabolized in the liver, causing damage there.  Because the research is mixed, Dr. Sears advises erring on the side of caution and eliminating high fructose corn syrup from children’s diets.

As parents, we consider chocolate milk a treat, not a beverage our children should be drinking every day.  We also believe that if only plain white milk and water were served in school, children would drink one or the other with their lunch.  The daily consumption of sweetened drinks, whether in the form of soda or flavored milk, is harmful to our children’s health.  It’s time for the Department of Education’s Office of School Food to put our children’s health before “business.”  No more excuses.  If the District of Columbia can do it, so can New York.

When retired military officers are advocating for food reform in our schools, you know there’s a serious problem.  Last Tuesday Mission: Readiness, a group of retired Generals, Admirals and other senior leaders of the United States Armed Forces, unveiled its new report, “Too Fat To Fight: Retired Military Leaders Want Junk Food Out of America’s Schools.” Here are a couple of the alarming statistics you can find in their report:

“Within a ten-year period ending in 2008, the number of states reporting that 40 percent or more of their young adults were overweight or obese went from just one state, Kentucky, to 39 states.”

“The journal Health Affairs reports that 80 percent of children who were overweight at ages 10-15 were obese at age 25.”

Junk Food in Vending Machines

These retired military leaders have identified the junk food and sugary drinks that are sold in school vending machines and stores as the primary culprits.  As their report points out, “Over the past two decades, Americans have increased their daily calorie intake by 250 to 300 calories.”  As we stated here a few weeks ago, it’s not the occasional sweet at a school bake sale that is causing childhood obesity, it’s the food our children are consuming every day.  When we went to middle school and high-school, there were bake sales, but there were no vending machines making Doritos, Linden’s cookies, and Pop-Tarts available to us every day (read ingredients here).  And despite the Department of Education’s attempts to improve the “nutritional value” of these processed foods so that no single serving contains more than 200 calories or 10 percent saturated fat, make no mistake that it is still junk food filled with empty calories that our children don’t need.

So why, in the midst of this health crisis which many are calling an epidemic, hasn’t Mayor Bloomberg, who eliminated trans fats from city restaurants, removed the junk food from our schools?  One possible explanation is the $28 million New York City schools are projected to make over the next five years from the vending machines.  The sad truth is that the Department of Education and the food companies providing the junk food are making a lot of money by making our children fat.  But the report from Mission: Readiness has an answer for this as well: “research shows that reducing high-calorie, low-nutrition foods and beverages…does not hurt a school’s bottom line.  The sales of school lunches increase when junk food and sugary beverages are limited.”

Whether the Department of Education would make up the loss revenue with increased sales of school lunches is irrelevant.  Schools should not be making money at the expense of our children’s health.  And yet the junk food continues to be sold out of greed, apathy, or some combination of both.  If the distressing statistics regarding the state of our children’s health aren’t enough to persuade Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein to remove the junk food from our schools, maybe this quote from Mission: Readiness’ report will: “The United States military stands ready to protect the American people, but if our nation does not help ensure that future generations grow up to be healthy and fit, that will become increasingly difficult.  The health of our children and our national security are at risk.  America must act decisively.”  Let’s hope that now our elected officials will do just that.

Mayor Bloomberg made the landmark decision to ban trans fats from city restaurants to protect the public’s health.  With 40% of New York City school children either overweight or obese and a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association predicting that a child born in 2000 has a one in three chance of developing diabetes, he should take the same bold step of banning corn syrup from foods in our schools that don’t need to be sweetened.

If a student chooses a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich with chocolate milk for lunch (an option that is offered every day in our schools), they are essentially eating corn syrup that is disguised as a meal.  Take a look at the ingredients here and you will notice that the wheat bread and buns served in our schools contain high-fructose corn syrup; the #2 ingredient in the peanut butter is dextrose (another form of corn syrup); the first ingredient in the jelly is corn syrup, as opposed to what you might expect, fruit; and the second ingredient in the chocolate milk is high-fructose corn syrup.

By some estimates, corn syrup makes up as much as 20 percent of children’s daily calories, and its consumption contributes to childhood obesity and diabetes rates. Plus, the production of corn syrup is devastating to the environment.  This is all especially tragic, since bread, peanut butter and milk do not need to be sweetened.  These hidden sugars in foods that don’t need them are silent contributors to the health crisis we see.  It’s time for Mayor Bloomberg to take the lead again on public health issues and replace these foods containing corn syrup in our schools with healthier options that do not.