Whether for control of calories, or as a means to reduce consumption of free sugars, getting juice and sugar-sweetened milk out of our kids schools, a place where they spend the majority of their weeks' waking hours, might have an impact.
In that vein, Merrigum Primary School in Australia recently announced it had become a "Water Only School", the principles of which include:
- Ensuring drinking water is available to students at all times.
- Permitting children to bring only water to school.
- Providing no sweet drinks through lunch orders or canteens.
- Ensuring staff model the behaviour by not bringing sweet drinks to school.
Personally, I love this initiative, and hope it spreads, but I also know that many might see it as overly controlling. Perhaps at the very least schools could be "Water Only" in terms of the liquids they offer/sell to students on campus which in turn would leave it exclusively to parents to decide what to send.
[Thanks to Rosemary Rich for sending this my way]
