Not everyone hates chocolate milk. When the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, proposed to pull chocolate milk off the menu at the city’s 1,700 public schools, a group of nine New York legislators sent him a polite, but firm, letter that said, in part:
We write to share our concern with the potential elimination of flavored milk in New York City schools.
Over two-thirds of milk served in school is flavored, which represents an essential way that kids get the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development. Research finds that children who drink flavored milk consume more nutrients of concern like calcium, vitamin D, and potassium compared to non-flavored milk drinkers. Further, leading health groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the School Nutrition Association, and the American Heart Association also acknowledge the important role that flavored milk plays in ensuring kids get the three cups of milk and milk products recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
We note here that the legislators have declined to refer to the product in question as “chocolate milk” — preferring the more politically-correct term, “flavored milk”. That’s just how politicians operate. In fact, I hear that in Florida, the state legislature is considering a “Don’t Say Chocolate” law.
But a few politicians in New York City are, like Eric Adams, still willing to use the word, even if they hate the product.
We will also note that Mayor Adams is a vegetarian. Not sure if that’s important, but all the news articles I googled mentioned it.
I suspect there are many things a New York City mayor could worry about, other than chocolate milk. But who am I to say? I don’t live in New York City.
I might not be the best person to address this issue. As mentioned, I don’t live in New York City. Also, my children are grown, and presumably drink what they want, when they want. I’ve learned, you can’t control your kids’ beverage choices after they leave home. You can guilt-trip them, but that’s about the extent of it.
Personally, I don’t drink milk, chocolate or otherwise. Maybe a little half & half in my coffee, on occasion? (And I don’t feel a bit guilty about it, just so you know.)
I use almond milk on my breakfast cereal. Not that I’m a health nut or anything, but I watched a video once about how dairy cows are treated, and I thought to myself, “A farmer would never treat an almond tree that way.” So I switched to almond milk. (Which is not actually milk, as we discussed a few weeks ago.)
There are a few problems with chocolate milk. For example, it typically contains as much sugar as Coca Cola. Which might be part of the reason kids are willing to drink it.
When I was a kid, I was not allowed to drink chocolate milk because, my mom said, it ruined my appetite. I think she was right. Broccoli tastes terrible after an 8-ounce carton of chocolate milk. Not that broccoli ever tastes good, but you catch my drift. So giving kids chocolate milk with their school lunches is likely a problem for the broccoli industry.
But not a problem for the American dairy industry. It’s the opposite of a problem. The dairy industry sells a lot of chocolate milk, and more than half of it goes into school lunch programs.
The statistics don’t look encouraging, however. Here in America, we’re having a childhood obesity problem. Not just “overweight” but “obesity”. When American children enter school in kindergarten, about 13% are “obese” — meaning “a body mass index of 30 or more”. (Whatever that means.) By the time our kids hit sixth grade the obesity rate has about doubled, to 22%. Thoee statistics don’t even include the kids who are ‘merely’ overweight.
Too much chocolate milk?
The American dairy industry laughs at that suggestion. You can practically hear them laughing. “What? Sugar-sweetened milk makes kids obese? Ha ha ha.”
Some nutritionists beg to differ. A study of school-age kids was summarized on the TSM Interactive website, quoting Ashlesha Datar, one of the study’s authors.
“It’s not just kids who are already overweight getting more and more so. There is an entire shift. Even those who are normal weight are gaining weight.”
The study’s authors recommend that overweight and obese children can be targeted for intervention during their first few years of elementary school because by the time they become adolescents it may be “too late.”
The website summary didn’t mention chocolate milk specifically, but it did summarize who, or what, might be to blame.
Experts blame video games and high-caloric snakes for this weight gain among the youngest Americans.
So maybe, if we can avoid the high-caloric snakes, the chocolate milk can stay on the menu.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.