Sugar Wars: Taking it to the Peddlers of Diabetes and Osteoporosis

[depakid]

I look forward to September, a time when millions of students, head back to school, to build the foundations of democracy, delve into the arts, sharpen a sense of wonder and build equity in our society. But, I like many teachers, am fighting a nemesis, one that inhibits thought, puts children on a roller coaster of emotion and drains their vitality. And this nemesis is often an invited and welcomed guest: soda pop. Nearly 19 out of 20 high schools like mine, sell soda. Ironically, the past can foretell the future. In 1931, a Coke bottler bragged, “the kids play basketball at recess on Coca-Cola goals, use Coca-Cola blotters to blot our their troubles, consult a Coca-Cola thermometer and write their notes on Coca-Cola tablets.” And seventy years later, Coca-Cola’s senior vice president for public affairs and its chief lobbyist isn’t passing out Coke blotters: no, John Downs Jr. now has a seat on the National Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) as a board member! Under the Bush Administration the Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson has heralded the Grocery Manufacturing Association for its “fine job in promoting healthy eating.” With positioning on school related organizations and aided and abetted by the Bush Administration (Leave No “sugared” Child Behind?) pop pimps see schools as a “sugary nirvana.”

Children are seduced daily by television (watching an average of 3-4 hours) bombarded with 10,000- food advertisements yearly: many to consume pop. In 1998, the advertising budget for soft drinks was $115.5 million. School often is the only “relatively commercial free” environment left for children. The sugar peddlers know this; they know that school provides a captive audience, with the reward of generating life long and dedicated brand consumers. Their strategy is simple: entice school administrators with dollars. It is immoral, unethical and unconscionable: apparently corporate rules operate in the absence of these conditions.

Coca-Cola provides “Coke in Education Day” where Coke officials lecture in economic classes and analysis of Coke products are done for chemistry. Do you think that this “Coke Day” studied the yearly cost of obesity in the United States, calculated between $75-100 billion? Did they encourage the chemistry class to note that for every can of Coke you drink, it takes 32 glasses of water to neutralize the phosphoric acid in your body? Would they do experiments that show when sugar is combined with carbon dioxide the calcium/phosphorous ratio in the body is upset: making bones brittle? Coke just doesn’t target schools. In 1998, Coca-Cola paid the Boys and Girls Clubs of America $60 million for exclusive marketing of their sugar water in 2,000 clubs!

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Defenders of pop contracts will wail, “We need the money.” Let corporations make altruistic donations without strings. We fund organizations like the “School of the Americas” or provide vast tax subsidies for tobacco, timber extraction and oil exploration. How about funneling those dollars in music, science and sports? Some will decry that students need to make their own choices. Nonsense, if their elders actively peddle pop in schools, it sends the message that it is okay. When did adults give up on providing directions through the minefield of adolescence? Let soda pop be an infrequent and rare treat, not a substitute for water, fruit juices and milk. Parents often brag about the wonderful car seat or athletic shoes they provide for their children; second best is not an option for their child. So let the school year 2004-2005 become a time where parents took schools back from the purveyors of osteoporosis, diabetes and public apathy. Second best is not best enough when it comes to this nation’s children.

The rest of the article discusses ways that parents and concerned citizens can fight back against corporations that would sacrifice our childrens health for the sake of their profits.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0720-07.htm