I’ve talked about how providing healthy food choices in school doesn’t usually work and the chocolate milk dilemma is one example. Two milk cartons are sitting side by side, one unflavored and one sweetened to the nines. Does it surprise anyone that in many schools 80-90% of the kids choose the unhealthy chocolate milk loaded with corn sweetener and artificial ingredients?!
Yes, we want our kids to be getting their calcium, that’s what creates the dilemma. Here is a way to bring awareness at your school to the Chocolate Milk Dilemma.
The smaller goal for this idea is to bring our sugar consumption into check. The grander goal is to get chocolate milk removed from your cafeteria once and for all. I call it ‘Take the Sugar Challenge’. I created it as an interactive game to play with families that visited the Wellness Club Table at our school’s Welcome Back Day. It could also be an interactive display for your next Wellness Fair, run by kids or grownups. I used chocolate milk as the sugar challenge item, but you could use soda or several sweet processed food items.
At the display, reference data from the American Heart Association’s website. It states that women should get no more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar a day to keep their hearts healthy. For kids under 9 years, it is 3 teaspoons. The average American has 22 teaspoons of added sugar each day and what about the average teen? 34 teaspoons!
Print out a picture of a carton of both regular and chocolate milk, similar to my photo above. Ask participants to guess how much sugar is in each, Price is Right style, but with teaspoons of sugar instead of dollars. Its more fun to have them compete against their friends or family to see who gets closest. Having actual teaspoons that participants can hold in their hands to make their guesses will make the shocking info stick even more.
So the eye-opening, shocking info is: unflavored milk has 3 teaspoons of nature sugar per carton. Chocolate milk has 7 teaspoons total, so 4 extra teaspoons of sugar per carton, more than the American Heart Association recommends for a whole day for an 8 year old! This is when most moms dropped their jaws at my table :)
For increased impact, include chocolate milk ingredients at your display. Here are the ingredients in one brand. Point out how processed it is with artificial flavors and colors added.
lowfat milk, corn sweeteners, cocoa, starch, dextrose, salt, caramel color, carrageenan, vanillin (artificial flavor), artificial color, vitamin A palmitate, and vitamin D3 added
Ask the kids to choose which is the healthier choice at lunch, unflavored or flavored. Bring up the fact that chocolate milk is a very processed dessert and have them consider waiting for dinnertime to enjoy a healthier dessert with their family. When the winner asks what their prize is, let them know it is powerful knowledge, knowledge that we are all eating too sugar and stressing our hearts and other organs in the process!
If you are ready for maximum impact, have a petition right there at the display for families to sign if they would like chocolate milk to be removed from the school lunch menu. See Jaime Oliver’s website for more help with removing chocolate milk from your school. If you hear the “my kids won’t drink milk if its not chocolate” excuse, remind parents and school decision makers that there are many other ways to get calcium besides processed milk that is laced with added sugar and artificial ingredients.
Matrix Wellness Club 