Drinking Chocolate Milk? Might as well have a spoonful of sugar instead.

I was very surprised that Decorah High School participated in the chocolate milk challenge sponsored by the Midwest Dairy Association. I understand that it is promoting the drinking of milk to students, but CHOCOLATE, really? Chocolate milk has about 23g of sugar in 8 ounces. That is as much sugar in a 12 oz. can of your favorite pop. We might as well be promoting the drinking of pop to students. Sure milk has other nutritional values that pop doesn't have, but why drink the kind that is loaded with added sugar? White milk would have been a much healthier alternative in this challenge. It still promotes milk, but not the sugar.

I think the high school should have though about participating in this challenge a little bit more before they took it on. It makes sense that they saw the word "Milk" and immediately thought it would be a great, healthy challenge for the students of the high school. The thing that is not mentioned is that the students are most likely no enjoying the milk they are drinking, but more the sugar that is added to the chocolate milk. This challenge gets students to drink milk because they are craving, and almost addicted, to the sugar in the chocolate milk. The high school is promoting an unhealthy choice for students and is doing more harm than good by participating in this milk drinking challenge.

I find it a little ironic that the students were drinking a beverage that is not very healthy for their bodies, yet the money they won from this challenge goes to health and fitness programs. Promoting sugar to promote health. That's like taking one step forward and two steps back. The other prizes that students were awarded were also not really promoting health, which is the idea of drinking milk everyday. Some of the prizes were a pizza party with your friends and a 'prime' parking spot at school. Pizza is NOT a healthy food for anyone to eat and getting the prime parking spot just makes students walk a shorter distance into the school.

I am disappointed in the high school's decision to participate in this challenge. America already has a health problem, without participating in challenges like this. The school should really think about what they are promoting when they do things like this. They should be caring for students health and safety, but this challenge doesn't really show that they are. The high school is essentially contributing to the students' health issues.