Pediatricians on Flavored Milk: Epilogue

Who can you trust on flavored milk?

In yesterday's post about the American Academy of Pediatrics' stance on flavored milk I attempted to stay as close as possible to the results of my interviews and other reporting rather than my interpretation of what that reporting revealed. Some explanation is in order, since the way in which the information was gathered was somewhat out of the ordinary.

While attempting to illuminate the American Academy of Pediatrics' flavored milk policy, I quickly learned that the academy has no single "spokesman." Rather, I dealt with a "contact" named Gina Steiner, who insisted she not be quoted. Instead, she put me in touch with members of the academy who were deemed best positioned to answer my questions. All of my interviews were conducted by e-mail, and sometimes the pace was agonizingly slow. Thus, I exchanged a total of some 45 e-mails between Steiner and academy sources over a period of two months, between May and July. I waited to write this report until after summer vacation had ended and families again were focused on sending their children to school.

Readers may be surprised to learn, as I was, that the AAP really has no formal policy focused on the feeding of flavored milk to children, other than brief mentions in its policy addressing sugar-sweetened beverages in schools, where flavored milk--along with plain milk, fruit and vegetable juices and water--is cited as a "healthful alternative" to sodas, and in the academy's statement on increasing children's bone density and calcium intake. Rather, AAP messaging on chocolate milk seems to depend more on its "partnership" arrangements with dairy organizations such as the National Dairy Council and MilkPEP, groups that are desperate to keep flavored milk a beverage of choice in the school meals program.

Is it really coincidental that the Dairy Council and MilkPEP are also financial contributors to the pediatrics academy? The academy insists that these contributions in no way influence its policies or messaging. But the dairy groups make liberal use of the academy's name in its chocolate milk promotions, as well as the names of pediatricians who are "appointed" as "unpaid advisors" to the dairy industry when they rise to positions of influence.

Some may be disappointed that the academy is not more transparent on questions of exactly how much money it receives from dairy interests, or exactly what its "partnership" arrangements entail. But more important is the question of trust and how that is compromised by the academy's acceptance of funding from the dairy industry.

Also, the academy gives parents no specific guidance on how much--or how little--sugar-sweetened milk products they should feed their children. Rather, the pediatric group leaves parents to ponder the question on their own. Here's how Jatinder Bhatia, chair of the AAP's committee on nutrition, put it to me:

"Parents should look at the child's total intake of sugar for the day. If they are getting it in flavored milk, then look at their cereals, snacks, etc. to be sure it's limited there. Also, many parents allow their kids to have flavored milk at school, but they serve plain milk at breakfast or dinner."

The AAP's silence on this question sets it apart from the American Heart Association, which recently released guidelines recommending that children consume no more than half their "discretionary calories" in the form of sugar. It should be noted, however, that calculating exactly what those discretionay calories are [PDF] for any given child can pose a challenge.

Dr. Robert Murray, until recently chair of the AAP's council on school health, says my questions suffer from a "common missperception" about what the AAP's statement on sugar-sweetened beverages means to say. But the statement is written in plain English and speaks for itself. And keep in mind, when you ask the AAP for its position on flavored milk in schools, this is what you get. The problem is not with missperceiving AAP policy, but with the fact that the personal opinions of individual pediatricians--opinions that so neatly align with those of the dairy industry--are bandied about where no formal AAP policy exists.

Indeed, some readers may find it curious that a professional organization with the reach and influence of the American Academy of Pediatrics should give so little formal policy guidance on the subject of flavored milk at the same time it is accepting money from the dairy industry and participating so closely in the industry's promotion of that same product. Its inaction on this point seems all the more confounding in light of the controversy flavored milk continues to stir in the school meals program--a program that feeds an estimated 32 million of the nation's children daily--and at a time when so many parents and school administrators are desperate for guidance from the medical community.

The academy says it is in the process of revising it policy on sweetened beverages in schools. This would be the perfect time to set matters right.

Have Pediatricians Sold Out to Big Dairy?

Does your doc recommend chocolate milk?

The Dairy Industry widely touts the nation’s pediatricians as supporting sugary chocolate milk for children. But when I went looking for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy on flavored milk in school, what I found was hardly a sweeping endorsement.

Instead, the group representing some 60,000 of the nation's pediatricians cites flavored milk along with plain milk, water, fruit and vegetable juices as “healthful alternatives” to the problem of sodas in school. But sodas aren’t served in most elementary schools, and are on the way out in many middle and high schools as well.

A 2010 report by the Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois, Chicago, found that only 17 percent of public elementary schools offer sugar-sweetened beverages such as sodas or sports drinks. The percentage of middle schools that offered sodas with meals shrank from 35 percent to 26 percent between 2007 and 2008. In high schools the decrease was from 46 percent to 36 percent.

When I pressed the head of the AAP’s nutrition committee to explain how pediatricians might continue to support chocolate milk if there were no sodas offered in schools, he abruptly ended our interview.

“I think we are belaboring the issues and I do not have any answers to address your concerns,” said Jatinder Bhatia, chief of neonatology at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

So what explains the cozy relationship between the American Academy of Pediatrics and Big Dairy.

Bhatia acknowledged that he serves as an “unpaid advisor” to the National Dairy Council. And as I would later learn, the American Academy of Pediatrics receives funding from dairy interests, although it refuses to say how much.

The AAP issued a statement saying: “The American Academy of Pediatrics receives grants and contributions from the federal government and foundations as well as from a number of corporations. These contributions help support the AAP's mission to promote the health and wellbeing of all children. In the 2009-10 fiscal year, just 7 percent of the AAP’s income came from corporate support. This includes contributions from the National Dairy Council and MilkPEP. “

(MilkPEP--or Milk Processors Education Program--is an industry group funded through a congressional mandate that promotes dairy with media campaigns such as “Got Milk?” and “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk!”)

The AAP statement goes on to say: “Safeguards and disclosure procedures are in place to protect against conflict of interest by either the AAP or its physician members who develop policy for review and approval by the AAP. The AAP conforms with all industry standards for disclosure of financial relationships…Outside funding has no effect on the AAP's policies, guidelines or messaging on any aspect of child health.”

If dairy money has no influence on AAP policy, it may help grease the wheels for what the pediatric group describes as “partnerships” with dairy interests to promote its products—including flavored milk.

For instance, the AAP last year joined a MilkPEP Halloween blitz that advised parents, “If you’re hosting a Halloween Party, serve low-fat chocolate milk as a nutritious treat in disguise.”

The AAP has also signed on to the National Dairy Council’s “3 Every Day of Dairy,” campaign, urging everyone to consume at least three servings of dairy on a daily basis. The AAP participates along with prominent sports figures in the dairy council’s “Fuel Up to Play 60,” promoting dairy and an hour of exercise in schools.

What’s more, the AAP appoints prominent members such as Jatinder Bhatia to “advise” the dairy industry.

When I asked to see a copy of the AAP’s partnership agreement with the National Dairy Council and MilkPEP, I was told, “We do not have agreements available for public inspection.”

This is the second in an occasional series of reports responding to an Associated Press article published in May that falsely asserted that several professional groups—including the American Academy of Pediatrics—had issued a “joint statement” supporting chocolate milk in schools.

My reporting reveals that most of the groups cited receive money from dairy interests as part of a carefully crafted public relations campaign designed to boost sales of flavored milk in the face of plummeting sales of plain milk. Schools account for only 7 percent of all milk sales, but more than half of all flavored milk. The American Dietetic Association and the School Nutrition Association also receive dairy industry money and enthusiastically support the chocolate milk campaign.

Dairy interests also pay for “research” to bolster their claim that children will lack the calcium they need for healthy bones if they are not offered flavored milk with added sugar.

Dairy groups trumpet the participation of individual physicians such as Jatinder Bhatia, publishing long lists of "advisors" that help create an aura of medical approval around the industry’s chocolate milk promotions.

In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not have a formal policy explicitly focused on flavored milk. The AAP's 2006 statement on optimizing children's bone health and calcium intake states that flavored milk, cheese and yogurt containing "modest amounts of added sweeteners" are "generally recommended." In the absence of more specific guidance, the dairy industry has created the illusion that it exists: Drink chocolate milk!

Pediatricians are hardly unanimous on the question. Robert Lustig, a prominent specialist in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, has called the sugar (meaning fructose) in chocolate milk “poison” because of its metabolic links with obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardio-vascular disease and fatty liver disorder in children.

Lustig was prominently featured in a recent New York Times Magazine article on the perceived dangers of fructose. But he declined to comment on the findings in this article, saying the American Academy of Pediatrics has, in fact, “embraced the issue of sugar in obesity.” He cited a recorded panel discussion the AAP recently sent its members in which Lustig and other specialists discuss the hazards posed by sugar in children’s diets.

“The issue of flavored milk is a complex one,” said Lustig in an e-mail, “and my opinion and comments are not for distribution.”

(When I interviewed Lustig in January and asked, "Do you think it's wrong for schools to be serving milk with added sugar?" he replied: "Short answer, of course. But it won't get fixed any time soon. The Dairy Industry is very tight with the USDA.")

The chocolate milk AAP policy suggests as an alternative to the sodas and sports drinks offered in schools typically contaings 3.5 teaspoons of added sugar in an 8-ounce serving. But Jatinder Bhatia was vague on the question of how much of it children should drink, saying, "AAP does not have policy on the number of servings of flavored milk per day."

Bhatia recommended “two glasses a day in younger children and three a day in older children,” adding that “moderation is key.”

“Although I personally am a proponent that we need to reduce sugar in the American diet in general and in children in particular, I also believe that it is not the flavored milk rather than the number of times the flavored milk is consumed.”

Bhatia continued: “We need to start in infancy when we start weaning infants from breast feeding or formula feeding and not offer them high sweet drinks and foods so as to not let them acquire a ‘sweet tooth.’ That way, we would not have to resort to flavored or other milks since children would have not acquired a sweeter taste.”

In its online publications, meanwhile, the dairy industry prominently quotes Bhatia as saying that “flavored milk could be a nice alternative [to plain milk] since the contribution of added sugars to the overall diet of young children is minimal.”

When Bhatia balked at the question of whether schools should serve flavored milk in the absence of sodas, I was told that this particular AAP policy, first approved in 2004 and “affirmed” without change in 2009, is likely to be revised soon.

I was then referred to Dr. Robert Murray, a professor and child nutrition specialist at Ohio State University, and until recently chairman of the AAP’s council on school health. “The policies of the AAP,” Murray said, “have been unwilling to sacrifice the nutrients in milk just to avoid a couple teaspoons of sugar.”

“Your question reflects a common misperception: that our directive to the public to limit sugar-sweetened beverages is based on the fact that sugars are ‘bad’. This is not the case,” Murray said. “Sugars, even simple sugars, can be a part of a total diet, just like any other component.”

According to Murray, “We did not write the soft drinks policy because of a concern about sugar itself, as much as a concern about energy-dense and nutrient-poor drinks being promoted by schools through industry contracts. The implications of that on increasing added sugars and lowering diet quality was the focus.”

School food advocates such as Ann Cooper contend that routinely serving flavored milk as part of the federally-funded meals program teaches kids to expect sugar in their food. But Murray says chocolate milk has become “a whipping boy” in the school food debate.

“Removing flavored milk is detrimental to overall pediatric nutrition and unlikely to affect overall added sugar consumption in any meaningful way,” he said.

Murray, who also served a term as a National Dairy Council advisor, said “neither the AAP Committee on Nutrition nor any other national nutrition organization has proposed a specified limit on flavored milk.”

But an advisory published by the American Academy of Family Physicians at its website lists drinking flavored milk as a “key unhealthy eating habit.” It says children should drink no more than 12 ounces of flavored milk per day.

The American Heart Association, meanwhile, recently set guidelines that would have children consume no more than half of their “discretionary calories” in the form of sugar. Millions of children may already be exceeding that standard because of the chocolate milk they drink at school with their federally-sponsored breakfast and lunch. Many are drinking even more in snack and supper programs.

Massachussetts Bans Chocolate Milk

Massachusetts has become the first state in the country we know of to ban flavored milk systemwide in school vending machine, snack shops and a la carte lines. The move came last week in a decision by the state's Public Health Council to issue strict food standards for schools outside federally-subsidized cafeteria lines that will eliminate sugary drinks, french fries, high-calorie snack foods and white bread.

The council, composed of, health advocates, doctors and other professionals, also ordered smaller portion sizes for fruit juices, more servings of whole fruits and vegetables and water free of charge for all students.

With its strict new standards, Massachusetts joins Los Angeles and the District of Columbia in removing chocolate and other flavored milk products, although L.A and D.C. have removed milk with added sugar entirely, including the regular lunch line. The Health Council agreed to delay implementation of its limited ban until 2013 so that schools have time to teach children to drink plain milk.

“We knew that people were going to have strong feelings about this and were concerned that overall milk consumption would drop,’’ said Dr. Lauren Smith, medical director of the Department of Public Health. “We wanted to give schools time to prepare so it can be done in a seamless way.’’ Studies have shown that when flavored milk is banned, milk consumption drops slightly but then rebounds, she said.

D.C. Schools Chancellor Defends Decision to Ditch Chocolate Milk

Not coming back to D.C. schools

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

D.C. Public Schools officials apparently have no intention of reinstating chocolate milk in local cafeterias despite a recent grilling by D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown and the pleadings of a first-grader who polled his fellow students.

In an e-mail to Brown dated June 22, newly-confirmed schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson says the decision to remove chocolate and strawberry-flavored milk from schools was part of an ongoing effort to make school food healthier, that the sugar in flavored milk puts many students at risk of obesity and heart disease, and that not serving more expensive flavored milk frees money that can be used to improve the the quality of meals served.

During recent confirmation hearings before the council, Brown tried to get Henderson to commit to bringing flavored milk back to city lunch lines based on findings of a 7-year-old student at Lafayette Elementary School that 58 percent of his school mates do not drink milk. "Kids won't drink milk unless it's chocolate," Brown said. The boy questioned why chocolate milk had been removed when schools continue to serve fruit juice that contains as much sugar as flavored milk, but not the protein.

In her e-mail to Brown, Henderson noted that Los Angeles schools, the second-largest school district in the country, recently opted to remove chocolate milk and that other school districts appear poised to do so as well. As for juice, Henderson said the sugar in fruit juice occurs naturally, unlike that added to flavored milk, and that juice is only served once per week in D.C. schools as a replacement for whole fruit.

A debate over the chocolate milk issue played out recently in Washington Post reporter Mike DeBonis' column after I broke the news in this blog about Kwame Brown's interrogation of Henderson. The father of the Lafayette Elementary student, Chris Murphy, wrote DeBonis insisting that his son "is not a dairy lobbyist." But a copy of the boy's testimony has since been widely circulated by the National Dairy Council as evidence that kids prefer chocolate milk to plain milk and risk not getting enough calcium to build healthy bones without it.

Chocolate milk has become a flash-point issue in the battle to improve the quality of food served in the nation's schools. The dairy industry spends tens of millions of dollars promoting chocolate milk as an alternative to soda and other soft drinks. While sales of plain milk have plummeted in recent decades , sales of flavored milk have tripled. But some health experts have become concerned about chocolate milk's roll in promoting children's consumption of sugar and say that kids can get the calcium they need from a range of other foods.

My reporting of D.C. school food indicated that as recently as a year ago, children were being offered the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of sugar with breakfasts in which chocolate and strawberry-flavored milk were served alongside Apple Jacks cereal, Pop-Tarts, Giant Goldfish Grahams, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and fruit juice. Under the aggressive approach taken by food services Director Jeffrey Mills, schools have removed not only flavored milk, but also sugary cereals and processed foods.

Henderson says the response to D.C. schools removing flavored milk "has been positive."

Here is the full text of Henderson's e-mail to Brown:

Chairman Brown--

In response to the discussion that arose during my confirmation hearing, I would like to share information with you about our decision to eliminate flavored milk from our menus.

The decision to stop serving flavored milk in DC Public Schools (DCPS) was made in support of our goal to serve healthy, natural foods to our students that are additive, artificial flavoring and coloring-free. This change was implemented, beginning last summer, in conjunction with new DCPS nutrition standards. Our new standards require that all menu items and competitive foods comply with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) standards, the federal HealthierUS Schools Challenge Gold Standard, and with our own district-specific standards which regulate/restrict sugar content in our meals.

Flavored milk contains significantly higher amounts of sugar and sodium than plain milk. An 8-ounce carton of flavored milk contains 14 grams (approximately 3 ½ teaspoons and 64 calories) of added sugar per serving. The American Heart Association recommends that no more than half of an individual’s discretionary calories come from added sugar. For young girls ages 9-13, for example, 8 ounces of flavored milk would constitute nearly a whole day’s added sugar allowance. Considering the fact that DCPS offers three meals a day, it is feasible that some students would choose to consume three cartons of flavored milk, thereby exceeding their recommended daily sugar intake by 128 calories. Other American Heart Association research cautions that the average child consume over 20 percent of their daily calories in the form of sugar, a habit that undoubtedly contributes to heart disease and obesity-related illnesses.

To the point that some have made about the amount of sugar in fruit juices, we mention that the sugar in juice occurs naturally, that all of the juice we serve is 100% juice, and we only serve it once per week as a replacement for fruit. Additionally, the amount of protein in milk does not vary between flavored and unflavored; some milk products have added milk solids (protein), but this additive is not unique to flavored milk.

DCPS currently serves only skim or 1% plain milk. Despite removing flavored milk and making significant menu changes, we are on track to serve nearly 2.5 million more meals this school year than last, meaning 2.5 million more milks have been purchased. Flavored milk also costs approximately $.05 more per carton than plain milk; and so, the additional volume comes at a cost savings to the District, allowing us to funnel more resources into buying more high-quality, healthy foods for our children.

Our Office of Food and Nutrition Services (OFNS) has been tracking district policies around flavored milk across the country. Just last week, Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country, stopped serving flavored milk, and according to indications within the school food service community, many other districts are planning to pull it in the coming school year.

While we do not take lightly the advocacy of our students, we also know that the District ranks 9th among all states with high overweight and obesity rates among adolescents ages 10-17 (DC DOH 2010 Obesity Report). It is also important to note that the majority of feedback we have received from the DCPS community regarding the decision to eliminate flavored milk has been positive. Spurred in part by the Council’s own nationally-recognized Healthy Schools Act legislation, we at DCPS have been working aggressively to develop nutritional health and fitness initiatives and approaches to help combat this challenge. Through this and other changes, DCPS hopes to give students the gift of a healthy palate and an active mind.

Sincerely,

Kaya Henderson

Big Dairy Loves 7-Year-Old's Take on Chocolate Milk, But He Needs a Fact Check

Some facts with that chocolate milk?

The National Dairy Council is circulating the testimony of a first-grader at Lafayette Elementary School who told the D.C. Council kids aren't drinking milk as much since chocolate milk was removed from the menu.

D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown last week grilled schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson on the subject during her confirmation hearings, trying to get Henderson to commit to reinstating chocolate milk in school cafeterias based on the 7-year-old boy's "research."

The boy's father, Chris Murphy, told Washington Post columnist Mike DeBonis that his son, Aidan Cohn Murphy, "is not a dairy lobbyist." But yesterday I was on the receiving end of a mass e-mail sent by Greg Miller, vice-president of science and research at the National Dairy Council, linking to Aidan's testimony with the words, "This kid did his homework."

Did he really?

Kwame Brown said he was impressed by the sleuthing Aidan had conducted, including a poll of 410 of his school mates to find that 58 percent are not drinking milk. (Apparently 42 percent are drinking plain milk, a lot more than are eating the green beans.) But a closer look shows that on several key points, Aidan got it wrong.

"We use to have chocolate milk in D.C. public schools," Aidan said in written testimony he submitted to the Council June 11. "But then you passed a law that said that no kids in D.C. Public Schools could buy chocolate milk. They could buy only white milk."

False. Apparently Chairman Brown thought Aidan was referring to the "Healthy Schools Act" the Council approved last year. But the act did not address flavored milk, nor does any other D.C. law. Removing flavored milk--which had included chocolate and even more sugary strawberry milk--was a decision made independently by school officials as part of an overhaul of school menus to make them healthier.

The chocolate milk from Cloverland Dairy the schools had been serving contained 14 grams of added sugar in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, or 3.5 teaspoons. “We’d like to teach students that sugar doesn’t need to be added to a natural food to make it ‘taste good,' " school food services spokeswoman Paula Reichel told the Post.

Aidan says that according to his survey, kids now substitute water for milk more than anything else. Many parents think that's a good idea. They don't believe milk is necessary. But Aidan went on to say that kids are substituting fruit juice for milk, and that would not be accurate. In D.C. elementary schools, children are required to take all of the offered food items at any meal. Milk is always offered. If juice is on the menu, they would be required to take that as well, not in place of milk. Juice typically is offered at breakfast, not so much at lunch. And at affluent schools like the one Aidan attends, breakfast participation traditionally is very low.

In proposed new meal guidelines, the USDA would make it more difficult for schools to substitute juice for whole fruit.

Aidan says Fairfax County also removed chocolate milk from the menu, but then brought it back with a "healthier kind of sugar." The truth is, sugar is sugar. There is no real difference between cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup as far as your body is concerned, except that the corn syrup may contain a higher percentage of fructose. Both are equally bad. In fact, Robert Lustig, a specialist in pediatric obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, has called sugar "poison." The American Heart Association has linked it to risk factors for cardio-vascular disease in children. According to the heart association's guidelines, millions of children drink too much flavored milk.

Aidan said that as part of his research he interviewed a doctor who told him chocolate milk is "medium healthy" and "better than drinking soda." The policy of the American Academy of Pediatrics is that flavored milk served in schools can be a "healthful alternative" to sodas and other soft drinks. But D.C. schools have not allowed the sale of sodas or soft drinks since 2006. They are not available for sale in D.C. elementary schools, although some kids bring them from home.

According to this doctor, the calcium and protein in milk "are good--but the sugar is not good."

Aidan quotes a recent Washington Post article in which a USDA spokesman says the agency would rather have kids drink milk with added sugar than no milk at all. But there's something Aidan needs to know: the USDA's job is to promote dairy products. In fact, the USDA oversees the Milk Processors Education Program (MilkPEP), which collects money from dairies by congressional fiat in order to spend millions of dollars promoting the "Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk!" campaign.

The USDA designates milk as its own food group in the school meals program, and requires that it be offered at every meal. No other agricultural product receives such preferential treatment from the federal government. Still, sales of plain milk are only half what they were after World War II, while sales of flavored milk have tripled in since the 1970s. Chocolate milk is the dairy industry's way of competing with Coke and Pepsi. Big Dairy is desperate to keep kids drinking chocolate milk.

In other words, Aidan, there's very little difference between the dairy industry and the USDA when it comes to peddling chocolate milk to children.

Aidan, you should be listening to your doctor and your other schoolmates and just drink water if you don't like plain milk. Kids are not suffering a "calcium crisis," as the dairy industry would have you believe.

We know you and your friends love sugary chocolate milk. But you need to make the healthier choice and learn to like plain milk. What you should be lobbying the D.C. Council for is extra money the schools can use to install electric milk dispenser so kids can have fun pouring themselves glasses of cold, delicious white milk instead of the stuff they serve you in those miserable little cartons.

D.C. Council Chair Would Have First-Graders Make School Food Policy, Reinstate Chocolate Milk

Just say no to chocolate milk

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

D.C.Council Chairman Kwame Brown says he's in possession of "research" conducted by a first-grade pupil that convinces him schools in the nation's capitol should bring back chocolate milk.

Brown made the remarks in an animated exchange last week with Kaya Henderson during hearings to consider her confirmation as schools chancellor. Saying a sleuthing first-grader had conducted "a study" concluding that kids just won't drink milk unless it's chocolate--information Brown said he confirmed talking to children at two recent elementary school promotion ceremonies--Brown pressed Henderson to commit to reinstating chocolate milk, which school officials removed from the menu a year ago as part of a push to make cafeteria food healthier.

Brown said he was impressed by the nutritional information on flavored milk the first-grader had amassed. More likely, Brown was tagged by the long arm of the dairy industry, which relentlessly pursues efforts to keep flavored milk in schools to offset decades of decline in sales of plain milk. As one of a few major school districts to ditch chocolate milk, the District of Columbia has become a crown jewel for activists aiming to topple flavored milk's rule in the nation's lunch rooms. Brown parroted the dairy industry line that kids won't drink milk unless it's tarted up with sugar, and will collapse in a heap of osteoperosis and rickets without it.

Henderson says dairy lobbyists have been pressuring her as well.

So how does a six-year-old dicatate school food policy in the nation's capitol? Here's the transcript from last Thursday's hearing:

Brown: This is from our youth hearing, a first-grader, and he made sense. And I want him to know to get his question in. We have the Healthy Schools Act. And we all know we want everyone to eat healthy. And I’m all supportive of that. But he had a survey of about I think 100 and something students that he had spoken with and I did my own independent survey of a couple of graduation ceremonies I attended and I come to find out that most students agree. They want to know why they can’t have chocolate milk in the schools. They said they’re getting juices that have more sugar than chocolate milk that has protein and less sugar. And their question to you was to say that it’s not because it’s not part of the Healthy [Schools] Act but because the schools just don’t offer it. And it’s wrong that the schools don’t give them a choice to have chocolate milk anymore. And I want to know can you commit to make sure that we have chocolate milk back in our elementary schools. Because they made an argument that it has protein and calcium and is better than some of the juices they’re getting inside the school now.

Henderson: I got a call from the milk producers of America telling me that research effectively says that if kids don’t drink chocolate milk, they won’t drink milk. I’m happy to work with my food services department on it.

Brown: So we’re going to get chocolate milk back into schools?

Henderson: I will work on it. I mean, here’s the thing, right? We didn’t make that decision lightly. There was a reason.

Brown: I know. I’m not saying….

Henderson: I’m willing to reopen the conversation about chocolate milk.

Brown: We reopened it already. You called and you talked to the milk people and….

Henderson: The milk people called me. That’s the lobbying people [laughs].

Brown: The first-grader came and he did the study and it said that most kids aren’t drinking milk at all now. They’re drinking more juices with more sugar and they’re more inclined at a young age to drink chocolate milk.

Henderson: I’ll talk to my people. Our priority is to have our kids drinking milk.

Brown: Chocolate milk?

Henderson: Why do you all try to get me to get up here and….

Brown: This is an interview, right? We asked you a question and we want to know what you’re committing to.

Henderson: Until I talk to my food service experts, I can’t make that commitment.

Brown: Is anyone here from….

Henderson: No, food services is not here.

Brown: Chocolate milk. Kids won’t drink milk unless it’s chocolate. We want our youth to know when they come to testify, they sit all day long, and he put an incredible amount of work into some of this research and I went to two elementary schools and spoke at their promotional exercises— graduations—and I asked them about chocolate milk and, yes, they want chocolate milk.

Henderson: I’m on it Mr. Chairman.

Brown. Thank you.

Brown's remarks came as members of the school board in Los Angeles--the nation's second-largest school district--were voting to eliminate chocolate, strawberry and other flavored milk as part of that city's battle against childhood obesity. Schools in Berkeley, Boulder, Minneapolis and elsewhere also have sworn off flavored milk because of the added sugar it contains. D.C. school officials made the move with little fanfare nearly a year ago after appointing a new food services director who has aggressively redesigned the menu, removing many of the processed and sugary items that had been served daily to the district's 45,000 students. Nearby Fairfax County, Va., also removed chocolate milk, but then reinstated it to quell protests.

Elected last November as chairman of the D.C. Council, the city's law-making body, Brown created controversy when it was revealed that he had leased not one but two fully-loaded Lincoln Navigators at a cost to the District of nearly $2,000 a month. He had returned the first car because he didn't like the color of the interior--he wanted black-on-black.

A report by the Institute of Medicine last year found that most Americans do not lack calcium or Vitamin D, refuting claims by the dairy industry that children suffer from a "calcium crisis." School food guru Ann Cooper, who refers to flavored milk as "soda in drag," has recently said, "we don't have a calcium crisis, we have an obesity crisis." In fact, kids in D.C. rank eighth in the nation for being overweight or obese.

The average eight-ounce carton of chocolate milk contains 14 grams--or 3.5 teaspoons--of added sugar, usually in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. The American Heart Association has warned that children on average now consume an astonishing 21 percent of their daily calories in the form of sugar, and as a result exhibit common markers for heart disease, such as low HDL cholesterol, elevated triglycerides and high LDL cholesterol. Robert Ludwig, an expert in pediatric obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, has called sugar "poison" because of its link to obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease risk. Ludwig cites a worldwide epidemc of obese infants and fatty liver disorder in children.

No less an authority than Walter Willet, head of the nutrition department at Harvard University, has warned that children should not be served flavored milk in school and that milk itself "is not an essential nutrient."

As for sugar in fruit juices, the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times last week also wondered why chocolate milk has been getting all the attention, when fruit juice contains as much sugar. The sugar in juice occurs naturally. Still, proposed USDA guidelines [PDF] for school meals would sharply curtial schools' ability to substitute juice for whole fruit.

Milk is not categorized as a protein in the federally-subsidized school meals program. Because of the dairy industry's special relationship with the USDA, milk comprises its own food group and must be offered with all meals. Protein in school meals comes from other designated sources, such as meat, poultry and fish. Most schools elect to offer milk as an optional meal selection, but D.C. Public Schools officials, in an effort to speed up food lines, this year required all elementary school students to take milk with their meals. The schools have not released data indicating how much milk children are drinking.

The dairy industry has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting chocolate milk while trying to scare parents, politicians and food service directors into believing that children won't grow healthy bones if they do not have access to milk with added sugar and flavorings. The slick industry campaign, including a "Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk!" promotion, pays for "studies" that bolster the industry cause, then dresses them up with statements cherry-picked from various health and medical groups to create an impression of widespread approval for kids drinking sugary milk products as much as they like.

Dairy interests have vigorously promoted one "study" in particular purporting to show that milk consumption plummets when flavored milk is removed from school. But that was the product of a marketing research firm hired by by the Milk Processors Education Program (MilkPEP), which refuses to make the "study" available for public inspection.

For the last year and a half, I've been monitoring what kids in the nation's capitol eat in the cafeteria every day and I can attest that they still drink plain milk. Sure, they'd drink more if it were chocolate or strawberry. But we already know kids love sugar. They'd eat lollipops instead of lunch if we let them--and some do. Only a year ago, they were pouring strawberry milk over Apple Jacks cereal as part of a breakfast that included Pop-Tarts, Giant Goldfish Grahams and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins. Kids as young as five were regularly being served the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of sugar before classes even started. All that is gone in favor of plain milk, cereal containing no more than five grams of sugar, string cheese and yogurt.

Still, just in the last week I saw children at my daughter's elementary school unpacking bottles of Sprite and Pepsi and containers of Kool Aide from lunch boxes they brought from home. I've seen kids eat bags of home-brought Oreo cookies, giant cupcakes, huge Hershey's chocolate bars and packages of Skittles. I recently witnessed one high-schooler make a lunch out of a 24-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew and a bag of Lifesaver candies.

Conducting my own unscientific survey for this article, I asked my 11-year-old daughter for her opinion. She said all schools should be made of chocolate and jelly beans, security guards should be replaced with giant Gummi Bears, and classes should be held at the Dave & Buster's arcade at the White Flint Mall. Her nine-year-old cousin, meanwhile, said half of all school hoursshould be spent in recess, the other half at lunch.

Schools are not free choice zones. Last we checked, adults--not children--were still responsible for making important policy decisions involving curricula, teacher hiring, standards and a host of other vital school issues--including nutrition and meal service. Local elected leaders are expected to act like grownups and look out for the welfare of minors, not pander to six-year-olds and the dairy lobby.

You can watch video of the Council hearing here. Fast-forward to 2:23.30 to view the discussion concerning chocolate milk in schools.

Heart Association Says Too Much Chocolate Milk a Health Risk

This may be dangerous for kids' health

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

The U.S. dairy industry spends millions trying to convince parents that medical professionals are firmly behind feeding kids milk spiked with sugar as a healthful way to deliver calcium and Vitamin D. Dairy interests pay for "research" that conveniently delivers the message that chocolate milk is a better choice than Coke. Proxies such as the School Nutrition Association and the American Dietetic Association then make sweeping statements implying that physicians approve kids drinking unlimited amounts of milk that tastes like candy.

It's all part of a well-oiled public relations campaign that deftly obscures the truth about how various medical groups approach sugar in food. The dairy industry has a lot riding on keeping things murky: For decades, milk sales have been plummeting, but sales of flavored milk have tripled. It would be very helpful indeed if the nation's medical doctors all stood behind the dairy industry's campaign to put a carton of chocolate milk on every kid's cafeteria tray.

In this first report on the actual policies of various medical groups the dairy industry calls allies, I look at how the American Heart Association, once pre-occupied with the fat Americans eat, is now focused on the risks of heart disease and other dangers posed by the excessive amounts of sugar we and our children consume--including flavored milk.

Read closely and you may find that your child already is drinking more chocolate milk at school than the heart association thinks wise.

In 2009, the heart association issued guidelines on sugar urging that men consume no more than 150 calories worth of "added sugar" daily, and women no more than 100. To put that into perspective, 150 calories of sugar represents the amount in 10 teaspoons, or a bit less than the sugar in a 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola.

The heart association reasons that Americans already eat too much and exercise too little. We therefore have little room for "discretionary" calories in the form of sugar, which has no nutritional value. If you are an average sort of guy, consider that can of Coke your entire allotment of sugar for the day.

In January of this year, the association in its journal Circulation published an article identifying cardio-vascular risks for adolescents who eat too much sugar. A third of all U.S. children are overweight or obese. On average they get more than 21 percent of their calories from "added" sugars, meaning sugars that don't occur naturally in food--such as the sugar in an apple--but are put there by the food industry to sell product. (Manufacturers aren't required to identify how much sugar they've added to prepared foods, but consumers can get a fair idea by reading ingredient and nutrition labels carefully.)

A detailed survey of 2157 adolescents aged 12 to 18, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the years 1999 to 2004, revealed that sugar consumption was positively correlated with several key risks of cardio-vascular disease, including increased triglyceride levels, suppressed HDL ("good" cholesterol) and elevated LDL ("bad" cholesterol). Researchers pointed to an emerging body of science linking sugar and refined carbohydrates with these and other health risks, such as insulin resistance--a precursor to diabetes--and increased fat production by the liver. They said the federal government's position on sugar was out of date.

“In 1986, the Sugars Task Force of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published a review of the research then available and concluded that there was no conclusive evidence of an association between sugar consumption and (cardio-vascular disease) or its risk factors," the researchers said. "Since then, the results of several new epidemiological studies and short- and long-term experimentsal studies have provided more evidence linking the intake of carbohydrates and sugars (particularly fructose) and increased risk of (cardio-vascular disease). And importantly, consumption of added sugars has risen substantially since the research reviewed in the Sugar Task force report was done."

According to the heart association, no more than half of discretionary calories--those beyond what are needed to provide proper nutrition--should be consumed as sugar. For children, figuring out what that means can be tricky, since kids come in all shapes and sizes and have different energy and nutritional needs depending on how old and how active they are. Along with its "food pyramid," the U.S. Department of Agriculture has published a chart indicating the discretionary calorie allowances for children of different age and activitiy levels.

For instance, an 11-year-old girl who gets less than 30 minutes worth of "moderate exercise" most days would be allowed 130 discretionary calories. According to the heart association, only half of those--65--should come from sugar. By comparison, a typical eight-ounce serving of chocolate milk contains 14 grams of added sugar, usually in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, which translates as 3.5 teaspoons or 52.5 calories.

This girl might well have a container of chocolate milk for breakfast. But a second container at lunch would put her 40 calories over her sugar limit--and that represents all the sugar the heart association thinks she should be eating the entire day. In other words, no cupcake at her classmate's birthday party, no soda on the way home, no ice cream for dessert after dinner, no sucking on a lollipop while watching television.

By contrast, a 16-year-old boy who is very active--meaning he gets at least 60 minutes worth of moderate physical activity most days--would be entitled to 650 discretionary calories, half of those--325--from sugar. That represents a much bigger flavored milk allowance--more than six eight-ounce cartons of chocolate milk.

The point is that millions of children already are drinking too much flavored milk at school. Some are taking it at breakfast, lunch and in supper programs--three times a day--then stopping at a convenience store for a 24-ounce Coke containing 290 calories worth of high-fructose corn syrup to drink on the way home. Is it any wonder kids are obese?

The heart association recommends that Americans limit their consumption of sugary beverages--including sodas, sports drinks and ice teas--to no more than 36 ounces per week.

In April of this year, the association urged the USDA to impose a limit on the amount of sugar in school food, something the agency in all the rules and regulations governing the school meals program has never attempted before. The heart association suggests that new school meal guidelines, now pending, should restrict a single serving of milk to 130 calories or less to hold down the sugar content, and cereal to no more than 7 grams of total sugar. (A 1.25-ounce serving of Kellogg's Raisin Bran contains 11 grams of sugar.)

The association says it is disappointed the USDA would allow schools to serve half of all fruitportions as juice. Too much sugar. It would rather schools serve exclusively whole fruit.

"It just makes sense if you’re asking the American public to reduce sugars you wouldn’t add more sugar than needed to flavored milk," said heart association science advisor Dorothea Vafiadis. "There has to be a limit."

Associated Press' Big Chocolate Milk Fail

The debate rages on

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

An Associate Press report last week on the controversy surrounding flavored milk in schools was widely reprinted in media outlets across the country, from the Washington Post to Huffington Post to Yahoo! In it, the AP declared that a number of professional and medical groups--including the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics--had issued a "joint statement" in favor of flavored milk, arguing that "the nutritional value of flavored low-fat or skim milk outweighs the harm of added sugar."

There's just one problem with the story: no such "joint statement" was ever issued. The AP is simply the latest victim of a well-oiled dairy industry propaganda campaign designed to fend off efforts to remove chocolate milk from school cafeterias. Not only did the medical groups AP mentioned never issue a statement supporting dairy's claims, some have come out squarely against the practice of routinely feeding kids milk tarted up with sugar.

Meanwhile, two of the organizations cited in the AP story as favoring flavored milk--the School Nutrition Association and the American Dietetic Association--are hardly impartial. They both have financial ties to the dairy industry and have been aiding industry efforts to keep chocolate milk in the lunch line. The National Dairy Council and the Milk Processors Education Program--or MilkPEP, an industry group that engineers media efforts such as the "Got Milk?" campaign--are both dues-paying "patrons" of the School Nutrition Association. Dairy has a seat on the SNA's "industry advisory board." Likewise, the National Dairy Council is a "sponsor" of the American Dietetic Association, which has similar arrangements with Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Kellogg's and school food service provider Aramark.

As I reported previously, the School Nutrition Association, representing thousands of the nation's school food service directors, last year worked closely with its dairy patrons to promote a "study" paid for by dairy interests that purports to show many kids will not drink milk if it isn't flavored. None of this was mentioned in the the Associated Press report.

When I contacted the Associated Press about getting a copy of the "joint statement" it cited, I received an e-mail from AP reporter Christina Hoag containing her correspondence with School Nutrition Association spokeswoman Diane Pratt-Heavner. In that exchange, Heavner linked to an April 13 SNA policy statement on flavored milk echoing the dairy industry's campaign language:

"Leading health and nutrition organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Heart Association, American Dietetic Association, the National Medical Association, and School Nutrition Association, have all expressed their support for low-fat and fat-free milk in schools, including flavored milk. The groups cited studies demonstrating that children who drink flavored milk meet more of their nutrient needs; do not consume more added sugar, fat or calories; and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers."

When I asked Heavner if she knew of a "joint statement" issued by the groups cited by AP, she referred me to a nearly two-year-old press release issued by the American Dietetic Association using uncannily similar verbiage:

"Leading health and nutrition organizations – including the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic Association, American Heart Association, National Hispanic Medical Association, National Medical Association and School Nutrition Association – recognize the valuable role that low-fat or fat-free milk, including flavored milk, can play in meeting daily nutrient needs, and helping kids get the daily servings of milk recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans...Studies have shown that children who drink flavored milk meet more of their nutrient needs; do not consume more added sugar, fat or calories; and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers."

Not surprisingly, the "studies" referred to by the School Nutrition Association and the American Dietetic Association were funded by the dairy industry. As I have reported elsewhere, dairy interests have created a kind of public relations echo chamber, using paid proxies to repeat the messages that emerge from "research" dairy pays for, all in an effort to convince parents, pediatricians and school food service directors that removing flavored milk from schools would pose dire health consequences for children.

When I asked the American Heart Association about the release issued by the American Dietetic Association, and whether the heart association had ever been involved in a "joint statement," spokeswoman Kanika Lewis said: "From what I understand, ADA used our science for the argument, but we didn't actually sign off on it."

Citing a growing body of science showing strong links between sugar and risks for heart disease, the American Heart Association has asked the USDA to impose a limit on the amount of sugar that can be served in school meals. Regarding flavored milk specifically, the assocation has told the USDA that new meal guidelines should restrict to 130 the number of calories in an eight-ounce serving of milk as a way of reducing the amount of sugar children are exposed to in the federally-subsidized meal program.

Likewise, the American Academy of Family Physicians lists flavored milk along with sodas and sports drinks as "unhealthy habits to avoid," and advises that "children should have no more than one 12-ounce serving of these types of drinks each day."

Millions of parents rely on medical authorities for advice on whether they should offer flavored milk to their children as a way of providing calcium and Vitamin D. The last thing they need is misleading information about the dietary habits medical organizations actually recommend. In my next report, I will attempt to get those various medical organizations to state exactly what their positions are.

Now Featured on Jamie Oliver's Blog

Getting kids hooked on sugar

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

My first article for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution blog appears today, a condensed version of a report I published here last week detailing the dairy industry's efforts to create a popular mythology around the notion that kids must have flavored milk available to them in school or else face the possibility of crippling rickets and osteoporosis.

Parents, pediatricians, food service directors--many have fallen under the dairy industry's spell. But a closer look shows that the real reason Big Dairy is campaigning to keep chocolate milk on school lunch trays isn't nutrition, it's the huge losses in sales dairy has suffered in recent decades as Americans abandoned milk as a preferred beverage in favor of cheap, sugary soft drinks.

Dairy organizations such as the National Dairy Council and the Milk Processors Education Program (MilkPEP), a promotional tool mandated by Congress, have very cleverly paid for "research" portraying chocolate milk as the healthy alternative to Coke. Papers written by nutritionists working for Big Dairy get repackaged by professional groups such as the American Heart Assocation and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dairy interests even buy their way into groups such as the School Nutrition Association, where they can make their case unfiltered to the nation's school food service directors.

The result is a kind of public relations echo chamber that puts a gloss of scientific authority on the industry's scare tactics.

With so many resources at their disposal, dairy interests would appear to be winning the battle over chocolate milk. I think their arguments need to be addressed point by point. But I could be wrong. It could be that the shear force of personality of charismatic chocolate milk foes as Jamie Oliver and Ann Cooper will win this argument. Witness the decision by officials in Los Angeles to discontinue flavored milk in the nation's second-largest school district--or at least bring the issue to the L.A. school board.

This is a fight worth having now. It is so much easier to remove junk foods from schools than to get children to actually eat the kinds of healthier foods advocates envision. Sugar by far is the most dangerous additive kids face in their daily lives. And yet the USDA has never regulated it in school meals. Even the agency's proposed new guidelines, which call for more vegetables and whole grains, fewer French fries and less salt, are silent on all the sugar used to entice children to eat certain products.

Chocolate milk is the poster child for what's wrong with the way we feed kids today. It's becomes a real flashpoint in the discussion over how best to proceed with the school food revolution, and that only works to the dairy industry's advantage. The sooner we get rid of flavored milk, the quicker we can get on with the business of making real progress in improving the food 32 million kids eat in school every day.

Big Dairy Puts Big Scare Into Parents to Push Chocolate Milk--But for How Long?

Drink chocolate milk or else!

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Los Angeles schools are prepared to announce they will no longer serve flavored milk beginning in the fall, according to a report yesterday in the Los Angeles Times. Superintendent John Deasy says he will make that recommendation to the L.A. school board in July. Could this surprise development in the nation’s second-largest school district spell the end of chocolate milk as we know it?

Faced with a cultural shift away from milk in favor of drinking sodas, the U.S. dairy industry has pulled out all the stops to scare parents and school food service directors into believing that kids will collapse in a heap of rickets and osteoporosis unless they have access to milk tarted up with sugar.

It’s no surprise that kids love sugar and sweets of all kinds--including chocolate milk and strawberry milk and grape milk and any number of other flavors. The question is whether the dairy claims are true, and whether enticing kids to eat foods laced with added sugar is a good thing in the midst of an obesity epidemic that threatens to cut short the lives of a generation of children and send the nation’s health care bill through the roof.

Don’t be fooled. The dairy industry would like you to think this fight is about nutrition, but it’s really about money. Since the end of World War II, annual milk consumption in the U.S. has plummeted from 45 gallons per person to around 20 gallons today, with milk losing market share to all kinds of sodas, juices and sports drinks sweetened with cheap high-fructose corn syrup. The one bright spot on this sorry trend line is flavored milk: Since 1975, sales of chocolate and other milk products with added sugar have tripled.

In the federally-subsidized school meals program, milk enjoys special status. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, whose primary job is to promote sales of the nation’s farm products, has singled out milk as the one food that must be offered to all 32 million children who eat the government-sponsored lunch. It’s required at breakfast, too, and an estimated 70 percent of the milk kids drink at school is flavored. Many schools have eliminated sodas, but they still serve strawberry milk containing nearly as much sugar as Mountain Dew.

With so much on the line, the dairy industry has funded research to bolster its cause. For instance, in its “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk!” campaign, the industry cites three research papers as supporting its contention that adding sugar to milk encourages kids to drink it, with no harmful effects. Through this lens, chocolate milk emerges as the healthy alternative to Coke.

In all three cases, those papers were either written or co-written by Rachel K. Johnson, a nutritionist who until 2008 was dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Vermont, a state with deep roots in the dairy industry. Johnson specializes in child obesity issues with “an emphasis on the nutritional role of dairy foods,” according to the university. She continues to teach nutrition there and might as well be on the dairy payroll as well: All three of the studies in which Johnson was involved were in fact funded by dairy organizations. She lists herself as an advisor to the National Dairy Council and the International Dairy Foods Association.

Biased though it may be, industry-funded research, with its gloss of scientific authority, makes its way into widely circulated professional journals such as the Journal of the American Dietetic Association and the Journal of Adolescent Health. It then migrates into findings of medical groups like the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dairy groups reference these to convince food service directors, pediatricians and parents that kids must have flavored milk.

The result is a kind of public relations echo chamber in which dairy industry messages based on “research” it pays for are parroted by proxies in the health and education communities who also have financial ties to dairy.

To further whip up public hysteria, dairy interests claim that if flavored milk is removed from schools, kids will stop drinking milk altogether. As proof, they site a “study” purporting that in seven different school districts milk consumption dropped an average 35 percent over a three-month period when chocolate milk was taken away. Kids drank 37 percent less milk even a year after the move to plain milk had taken place, according to these findings.

Very likely, some kids do drink less milk when sugary milk is taken off the menu. But this was no scientific study. It was written by a marketing research firm hired by the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP), the industry-funded group responsible for the famous “Got Milk?” campaign. The company in question--Prime Consultant Group—is a major player in consumer analysis and sales strategies that lists among its clients Coca-Cola, PepsiCo International, Kraft Foods/Nabisco, Sara Lee and Proctor & Gamble.

MilkPEP refuses to make details of its “study” available for public scrutiny. Yet it immediately touted the new “findings” to the nation’s school food service directors through the School Nutrition Association, which represents some 53,000 cafeteria bosses.

MilkPEP is a program mandated by Congress and overseen by the USDA that collects money from milk producers and uses it to promote milk consumption. MilkPEP and the National Dairy Council are listed as “patrons” of the School Nutrition Association, meaning they pay at least $10,000 in annual dues to support SNA activities. A MilkPEP representative also sits on the SNA’s “industry advisory board,” along with representatives from corporate food giants such as Tyson, Sysco and General Mills.

In August of last year, shortly after the “study” was unveiled at the SNA’s annual conference in Dallas, the SNA hosted a “webinar” for its members titled, “Keep Flavored Milk from Dropping Out of School.” The SNA advertised the webinar this way on its website: “Learn about free resources available to use with parents, school officials, and other interested parties to help show that student nutrition and food budgets are negatively impacted when flavored milk is removed from schools.”

Jamie Oliver, while filming his second season of the Food Revolution television series, ran into the same buzz saw in Los Angeles. There, a special break-out session on the need to retain flavored milk—led by a dairy industry representative—was held at a conclave of the California School Nutrition Association. Jamie was filmed attending the session and making his objections known.

In the face of such concerted and well-funded efforts by the dairy industry, opponents of flavored milk would seem to be hopelessly outgunned. In fact, you might say this fight is rigged in the dairy industry’s favor. Yet no less an authority than Walter Willett, head of the nutrition department at Harvard University, says milk containing added sugar should not be offered to children in school, and that milk itself “is not an essential nutrient.”

The prestigious Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, recently knocked some of the stuffing out of the milk industry’s claim that children face a “calcium crisis.” In the most authoritative scientific statement to date, an IOM panel of experts said most Americans get all the calcium and Vitamin D they need.

As far as school children are concerned, one segment of the population that might need extra attention is pubescent girls. According to the IOM, girls leading up to and during puberty typically consume around 823 milligrams of calcium daily. Because they experience a growth spurt during this period, they should aim to get about 200 milligrams more calcium, or “between 1,000 and 1,100” milligrams, said Dr. Steven A. Abrams, a professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine who specializes in the calcium intake of children and was one of the panelists who wrote the IOM report.

By comparison, a one-cup serving of Total cereal contains 1,000 milligrams of calcium, a cup of low-fat milk around 300, and a half-cup of cooked collard greens 200, about the same as in a single serving of string cheese.

In an interview, Abrams--who also advises MilkPEP--told me: “I’ve never been a fan of the term ‘calcium crisis.’ I’m much more in favor of policies that ensure we meet that 1,000 milligrams. What we need to do is make sure that we have a lot of different ways for kids to get to it.”

In other words, milk isn’t the only way to get calcium. It’s available in lots of other foods. Milk is not required in the schools of most other countries. According to Oliver, flavored milk is prohibited in schools in Great Britain and the rest of Europe.

More ominously, emerging science paints a dire picture of sugar as a trigger for obesity and related health problems such as diabetes, hypertension and coronary artery disease. A 6,000-word feature article appeared in the April 17 edition of the New York Times Magazine under the headline, “Is Sugar Toxic?”

Robert Lustig, a specialist in childhood obesity and pediatric hormone disorders at the University of California, San Francisco, is at the center of this report. Lustig, who helped write the American Heart Association’s guidelines on added sugar, is convinced that the fructose in ordinary sugar as well as in even sweeter high-fructose corn syrup is intimately connected with the obesity epidemic and so-called diseases of modern civilization because of the way it is metabolized in the liver, like alcohol.

Sugar represents not just empty calories, Lustig insists. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.” Lustig says Americans are consuming more calories than ever because their appetite suppression mechanisms are disrupted by eating too much sugar, especially in sodas and other sweetened beverages.

Lustig worries about a worldwide outbreak of obese infants and an epidemic of fatty liver disorder in children caused by too much sugar. Research finds that female adolescents get 20 percent of their total energy in the form of added sugars, meaning sugar that does not occur naturally in food. Even for children aged 6-11, the figure is an astonishing 19 percent.

Needless to say, Lustig does not approve of chocolate milk in school. Gary Taubes, one of the nation’s foremost science writers and author of the New York Times article, is convinced sugar is dangerous even though the scientific evidence isn’t conclusive.

Some medical researchers Taube’s interviewed have eliminated sugar from their personal diets because they believe it may cause common forms of cancer.

The U.S. government has been slow to fund adequate studies of sugar in the diet, and the sugar industry has vigorously fought efforts to issue guidelines on sugar consumption. In fact, in all the volumes of rules governing the school meals program, sugar is one ingredient the USDA does not regulate at all. Cash-strapped schools use it as a cheap way to boost the calorie count in their food. The USDA’s proposed new meal guidelines were specifically written to leave room for flavored milk, even while lowering the number of calories schools can serve in meals.

I’m not waiting for “conclusive” science either. Like school officials in Los Angeles and other forward-thinking districts, I believe we have enough information to know that we as a society—and kids in particular—have gone way overboard in our taste for sugar, a food substance that wasn’t even widely available for most of human history.

I sympathize with parents who are perplexed and worried about kids getting enough calcium and Vitamin D. But we can’t play Russian roulette with our children’s health. All of us need to change the way we eat and stop teaching kids to expect sugar with their food every day, especially in the one-size-fits-all meal program at school.

In at least one respect I agree with the dairy industry: We need to get children off soda. We need to teach them to like plain milk again--as well as other fresh, wholesome foods that deliver the nutrients they need. Here’s one great way to get Vitamin D and build strong bones: go outside and exercise.

As much as the dairy industry would like us to believe otherwise, flavored milk is not a solution. It’s part of the problem. If kids are to drink chocolate milk at all, it should be reserved for an occasional treat—at home with parental supervision, not in school.

NY Times' Sugar Bombshell

Science writer Gary Taubes

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

We may look back on this week as the moment when public opinion finally turned against the idea that fat is what makes us ill and embraced the emerging science implicating sugar as the nation's number one threat to good health.

In Sunday's New York Time's Magazine, science writer Gary Taubes makes the case that sugar--not fat--is the agent behind our most pressing health problems, including obesity and the various degenerative ailments associated with "metabolic syndrome," including diabetes, hypertension and coronary artery disease. If true, this would overturn more than 30 years of ill-conceived nutrition and health policy in this country, recognizing what a growing number of medical researchers have already concluded: fat is not the problem, carbs are. The reason for America's shocking level of obesity and related health issues lies with our addiction to processed, carbohydrate-rich foods, starches, and especially sugar.

The implications for those of us primarily concerned with children's health are clear: kids should not be drinking sodas or sugary flavored milks. They need to stop indulging in all kinds of snack foods and desserts that now play such a prominent role in children's eating habits. School menus should be sugar-free--and that goes for chocolate milk, too.

The most vocal of medical authorities now blaming sugar is Robert Lustig, a specialist in childhood obesity and pediatric hormone disorders at the University of California, Berkeley. We've written about Lustig and quoted him here before. Taubes describes his 2009 lecuture called "Sugar: The Bitter Truth," which at last count had been viewed 973,123 times at YouTube and has been increasing viewership at a rate of some 50,000 per month.

In his 90-minute talk, Lustig outlines in some detail how the fructose contained in either sugar or high-fructose corn syrup is treated by the body as a toxin; how, unlike glucose, the sugar derived from other carbohydrates such as bread and potatoes, fructose is converted into fat in the liver, triggering not just "metabolic syndrome," but, in Taubes' view, many common cancers as well. Lustig blames sugar for a worldwide epidemic of fatty liver disease in children.

Most importantly, Lustig insists that the obesity epidemic we are so concerned about is not just about too many calories, but eating the wrong kinds of calories--specifically, too much sugar. Sugar represents not just empty calories. "It's not about the calories," Lustig says. "It has nothing to do with the calories. It's a poison by itself." Lustig says the reason Americans are consuming more calories is because their appetite suppression mechanisms are disrupted by eating too much sugar, especially from soda and other sweetened beverages.

"In animals, or at least in laboratory rats and mice, it's clear that if the fructose hits the liver in sufficient quantity and with sufficient speed, the liver will convert much of it to fat," Taubes writes. "This apparently induces a condition known as insulin resistance, which is now considered the fundamental problem in obesity, and the underlying defect in heart disease and in the type of diabetes, type 2, that is common to obese and overweight individuals. It might also be the underlying defect in many cancers."

How much sugar do you have to eat before it becomes toxic? That's the $64,000 question. The last time the federal government looked at this, in a 1986 Food and Drug Administration report, it was estimated sugar did not pose a danger at what was then the current level of consumption: 40 pounds of sugar per person per year of "added sugar," meaning in addition to what the normal person would get from eating fruits and vegetables. That's 200 calories per day of sugar, Taubes says, or less than the amount in a can and a half of Coca-Colar or two cups of apple juice.

"But 40 pounds per year happened to be 35 pounds less than what Department of Agriculture analysts said we were consuming at the time--75 pounds per person per year--and the USDA estimates are typically considered to be the most reliable," Taubes writes. "By the early 2000s, according to the USDA, we had increased our consumption to more than 90 pounds per person per year."

Obesity rates in this country correlate neatly with increasing consumption of sugar, and especially high-fructose corn syrup, which contains more fructose than table sugar as is not only sweeter but cheaper than cane sugar. Now researchers are finding that many forms of virulent cancer thrive on the insulin the body produces in response to sugar. Obesity and diabetes go hand in hand. Likewise, people who are obese or diabetic are more likely to develop some form of cancer.

That has some medical researchers swearing off sugar in their personal diets. "I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possbly can," says researcher Craig Thompson, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, "because I believe ultimately it's something I can do to decrease my risk of cancer."

Lewis Cantley, director of the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center at Harvard Medical School says, simply: "Sugar scares me."

Unfortunately, little funding on the dangers of sugar has been forthcoming from the federal government. The National Institutes of Health is funding a few small studies. Taubes suggests these need to be bigger and of longer duration. But even though the current science is not as conclusive as Robert Lustig believes it to be, Taubes says he's convinced.

"Officially I'm not supposed to worry because the evidence isn't conclusive, but I do."

That's good enough for me.

The Wash. Post's Sorry Coverage of Chocolate Milk

Kids love sugar any which way

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

The most popular story in today's Washington Post concerns the "controversy" over flavored milk in schools. Two jurisdictions in the paper's readership area--the District of Columbia and Fairfax County--have recently banned milk with added sugar from their cafeterias. But because of complaints from the community, Fairfax County this month announced that it is re-introducing chocolate milk, except with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup.

As if there's a difference!

Too bad the Post reporter behind the story didn't do a little more homework. He might have reported how D.C. parents have pressed to eliminate flavored milk and the incredibly sugary breakfasts Chartwells routinely was serving in D.C. schools, and how sugar unregulated by school meal standards has no place on the menu in the middle of an obesity epidemic.

He might have mentioned the recent report from the Institute of Medicine finding that children are not suffering a "calcium crisis," as the dairy industry would have us believe.

He might have noted that prominent nutritionists, such as Walter Willett, head of the nutriton department at Harvard University, declare that milk is not an essential nutrient.

Or that the "study" so often cited by the dairy industry as indicating kids won't drink milk if it doesn't have sugar in it was really no study at all. It was paid for by the dairy industry!

Or that the problem with chocolate milk--or strawberry milk, or root beer flavored, or grape flavored--isn't the calories, it's the metabolic effects of sugar directly linked to obesity and a host of serious health problems, such as diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease. Sugar is a key player in the so-called "metabolic syndrome."

Healthy school food advocates really need to get their talking points in order on the issue of flavored milk. It's not enough to compare chocolate milk with apple pie. People like apple pie too much. There are plenty of scientifically sound reasons to object to sugary milk served in schools. Reporters for powerful media outlets such as The Washington Post should know what they are.

Fortunately, D.C. Public Schools officials--most importantly food services director Jeffrey Mills--are sticking by their decision to keep sugary milk off the menu. This is something we now want to encode in the district's wellness policy.