Thursday, June 11, 2015

The Post Game "Snack" Local Little League Coach Hands 9 Year Old Players

Thanks to a reader who would prefer to remain anonymous up above is a photo of what her 9 year old's little league coach gave the team at the end of their game last week. 238 totally non-sating calories packed with 5.3 teaspoons of sugar that also teach kids that exercise should be rewarded with food, and/or that teeny bits of exercise require "refuelling".

Given the sheer volume of email I get about this specific topic, it makes me wonder whether or not trying to tackle the ridiculous, but wholly normalized practice of providing kids who do the teeniest bit of sport with post-game "snacks" would be better approached by trying to ban the practice league-wide? Clearly our however well-intentioned status quo at best has health-washed junk food like granola bars and juice being handed out, and at worst, like up above, frank junk. And that's not to say I think junk should be banned from fields, but rather that we require parents who want their kids to have snacks to bring them with for their kids' own use, but end post game snacks' totally unnecessary and routinized provision to the entire team.

Pretty sure that if done, the kids will still have just as much fun, and if parents are desperate to be tasked to bring something, each week one can be responsible for bringing a bag of ice for a cooler full of water.