Another culprit for climbing childhood obesity rates was found: the chocolate milk given out at school cafeterias or, more precisely, the sugar in it. A growing movement wants to ban chocolate milk from schools. Can this make a difference?
Calories In School Milk
The typical serving size for milk given out at school cafeterias is 8 fluid ounces (0.25l). If it’s whole white milk, these contain around 144 kcal, of which about 56 come from sugar, especially lactose, that makes up the majority of sugars in milk.
The same serving size of chocolate milk, again prepared with whole milk, has 208 kcal, of which 96 are from sugar. The difference in consumed sugar therefore equals 40 kcal.
Calories For A Six-Year-Old
Let us now take an average six year old boy, who weighs 46.2 lbs (21 kg) and has a height of 3’10” (1.17 m). If he engages in activities typical for a boy of that age – school sports, playing outside etc. – the daily calories this child needs to sustain his weight and allow for normal growth are about 1,500 kcal. 8 fl. oz. of chocolate milk therefore fulfill about 1/7th of this boy’s daily energy requirements.
We can also assume that he is treated to three daily meals, as is or at least should be the case in most families, and that the school lunch comes with the 208 kcal chocolate milk and 300 kcal in the form of bread, vegetables and whatever else these meals usually consist of. This meal therefore makes up one third of the boy’s daily calorie allotment and leaves room for two more meals of 500 kcal each.
Food Outside School
To get a complete picture, we then have to look at what children eat with their families. For many, mornings start with a bowl of sugared cereal (40 g, 226 kcal) in low fat milk (1 cup, 102 kcal), followed by candies and treats in the afternoon (one 2 oz. candy bar, 271 kcal), while the evening meals are made up of a cheeseburger (313 kcal) and small fries (224 kcal), washed down with a “kid’s size” soft drink (120 kcal), followed by a small cone oft soft-serve vanilla icecream (164 kcal) to finish things.
This alone results in 1,420 kcal. If we now add our 500 kcal school lunch with its chocolate milk on top of it, we are at 1920. The chocolate milk accounts for 1/9th of the total calories consumed and even if we replace it with water, the calories are still in excess (1712) for our boy above.
According to the Washington Post, popular British TV chef Jamie Oliver for his TV show “Food Revolution” recently filled a school bus with white sand to represent the amount of sugar school children in Los Angeles consume in flavored milk per week, while a representative of a Colorado school district remarked that “chocolate milk is soda in drag”.
Have Your Say
Is this outrage exaggerated or is the chocolate milk given out at schools a primary reason why children are overweight? And how could it be replaced? During elementary school, chocolate milk was a staple of my diet and it was either that or no milk at all.
Pictures courtesy of United States Department of Agriculture.