An article in Monday’s Denver Post got me thinking about the hoops we jump through to get kids to eat healthy. Entitled “Cartons of Controversy,” the article weighs the pros and cons of serving so-called flavored milks, as opposed to just plain white milk.
On one side, folks believe that chocolate milk is too high in sugar to be healthy. On the other side, people say that kids won’t drink plain milk, so the high sugar content is worth it since at least the kids are getting calcium, potassium and vitamin D.
I’m sympathetic to the struggle. My youngest child went through a phase where she was underweight and refused to drink “plain” milk, so a nutritionist advised that we switch to chocolate. (She also recommended serving all vegetables with a dipping sauce like ranch dressing and that oh-so-nutritious-vegetable called french fries, advice we chose not to follow.) But we did switch to chocolate milk, and despite the pleas of her older siblings, we served it only to her. As soon as her weight improved and she was no longer off the growth chart, we weaned her off the chocolate milk. Now, I’m relieved to say, chocolate milk is mostly a thing of the past, though we still drink plenty of hot cocoa on cold, snowy days like today.
Parents, teachers, other adults out there, what do you think? What hoops do you jump through to get your kids to eat healthy?
No chocolate milk at our house.
I do several things in the name of healthy eating for our kids. One big one: I make almost all our baked goods from scratch, and these days, I use hardly any white flour. I keep a couple of varieties of whole wheat flour on hand that work nicely in anything I want to make.
Two cute stories that show it’s working (yay!): We were on the road the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and stopped for brunch. Our 12-year-old ordered pancakes, which were of course made with white flour (and who knows what else–maybe a mix was involved). She exclaimed “These taste really fake–that’s because they’re made with white flour.”
Then just a few days later our 8-year-old was doing a “pancake science” day at school where kids got to choose what kind of flour to use in a pancake recipe to see how it affected the final result. That afternoon at home, my daughter told me, “Mommy, you’ll be very proud of me; I chose whole wheat because I know it tastes better and it’s better for me.”
I love that “tastes better” comes before “better for me” in their minds! Now I know we’ve achieved full conditioning! And I didn’t even preach THAT much.
Great stories. Thanks for sharing.
Doesn’t it make you think that if the schools only served milk or water (instead of the juice or sports drinks that schools say kids will turn to if only white milk is offered) then kids would learn to appreciate the taste of “plain milk”? Just the way your kids have learned to appreciate the taste of whole wheat flour. As you say, “tastes better” can come before “better for me” for all our kids — if we steer them in the right direction.
I don’t like the taste of milk (chocolate or plain), so I don’t make it a big deal for my kids to drink it. They eat yogurt and cheese by the pound (as do I), which makes me feel like they are getting all they need nutrient-wise. But, when I sense that we haven’t had a week in dairy-rich foods or its just downright freezing, I add 1/4 chai concentrate (Third Street from Boulder) to 3/4 milk and warm it up for a morning treat.
I think the debate about chocolate milk is really a way to hide behind the real issues that are facing schools. It’s easy to say “chocolate milk is bad” and try to divert the issue when the fact of the matter is that they are still serving kids chicken nuggets and other processed nutrient-devoid foods. It’s all about balance, but that balance must come when society recognizes that we have gotten way too far from our core of eating whole foods, prepared from scratch.
If schools made whole food meals using fresh, local meats and vegetables the argument about milk might stand up (but I wouldn’t be waving the chocolate milk is bad flag), but to date I’m not seeing a huge reversal in industrial food production which would justify the need to demonize chocolate milk. Furthermore, I think about countries like France where food isn’t made into bad and good, but just damn good food in moderation…. One of my best friends is French and every day after school she always gives her children chocolate. It’s how she was raised. She’s a size 4 and one of the healthiest people I know. She also gives her children healthy food, cooked from scratch, sourced locally 3x a day.
I dunno…
I completely agree. With everything!
Thought you might find this interesting: MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) from the CDC discussing the implications of offering reduced fat milk and an editorial comment about chocolate milk. Addresses this question from a public health standpoint.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5903a2.htm?s_cid=mm5903a2_e
What a great perspective — thanks for passing this along. I urge anyone who’s interested to read the link, especially the editorial notes about two-thirds of the way through. One interesting point that’s made: While chocolate milk is cause for concern due to its higher sugar content than white milk, more than half the milk purchased in the NY school system was chocolate so the trade-off was deemed worth it, that is, worth keeping fat-free chocolate milk so the kids were at least drinking milk with all its calcium.