Impact of Soft Drinks On Child Health

MYTH: Schools need the money generated from the sale of soft drinks and low-nutrition snacks.

REALITY: Many assume that schools will lose money if they sell only healthy foods and beverages to children. That is not necessarily the case. Schools in California, Maine, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania are finding that selling water and 100% juice in vending machines can fill funding gaps created when soda sales are limited

or banned on campus.

REALITY: In the long run, we are sure to spend more on obesity-caused healthcare costs than we'll ever raise selling sugary drinks and junk food in schools.

MYTH: Obesity is due primarily to children not getting enough exercise. Kids are not eating more calories than in the past.

REALITY: Physical activity is essential to children’s health and maintaining a healthy weight, but what they eat and drink is also playing a key role. Children are consuming more calories than in the past. Between 1989 and 1996, children’s calorie intake increased by 80 to 230 extra calories per day (depending on the child’s age and activity level).

MYTH: Soft drinks and snack foods are not big contributors to obesity.

REALITY: Soft drinks and snack foods are major contributors to the extra calories that children are consuming. Soft drink consumption doubled over the last 30 years. Kids who drink more soft drinks consume more calories and are more likely to be overweight.

MYTH: If schools do not sell soft drinks, candy, and other low-nutrition foods and beverages, children will go off campus to buy them.

REALITY: Most schools have closed campuses. In fact 94% of elementary schools, 89% of middle/junior high schools and 73% of high schools have a closed campus policy.

MYTH: Parents are solely responsible for their children’s eating habits.

REALITY: Children spend a lot of time at school. All choices at school should be healthy and make a positive contribution to children’s diets and health so that parents do not have to worry about how their children spend their lunch money.

MYTH: Children need the opportunity to learn to make choices about what they eat and drink.

REALITY: Children, these days, have plenty of opportunities to make food choices. Those opportunities are best offered when parents are around to provide guidance about those choices. Schools should offer choices, but all should be healthy.

REALITY: The school nutrition environment should support and reinforce nutrition education in the classroom. Offering children low-nutrition foods and beverages in schools sends them the message that good nutrition is not important, when what they eat is, in fact, critical to their long-term health and well-being.

MYTH: There are no good or bad foods, only unhealthy diets.

REALITY: In most schools, if a child spends his or her lunch money on a school lunch, the lunch will provide a balance of nutrients and a modest amount of fat (although there may be room for improvement). If they instead buy something out of the vending machine, it is likely to be high in fat or sugar and contain few nutrients.

REALITY: Consumption of soft drinks can displace low-fat milk and 100% juice from children’s diets. In 1976-78, boys consumed twice as much milk as soft drinks, and girls consumed 50% more milk than soft drinks. By 1994-96, both boys and girls consumed twice as much soda pop as milk. Unfortunately most children are not eating healthy diets. Only 2% of children eat a healthy diet consistent with Food Guide Pyramid recommendations. While there are a number of problem foods in children’s diets, soft drinks and low-nutrition snack foods are having a big impact on children’s diets and health, and should be addressed.