Sugar Sugar

A lot of my high school students have terrible eating habits, like most American teenagers.  And I mean terrible.  Mostly because of all the sugar.

How much sugar?  Here are just two examples.  One student told me that every morning he wakes up and has bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and two Mountain Dews.  Now I like my sweets as much as anyone, but Cinnamon Toast Crunch is too much sweet for me to handle.  And Mountain Dew has more grams of sugar than Coke or Pepsi.  And that's breakfast.  Not quite the breakfast of champions.

And one morning I saw a student eating breakfast at her desk before school started.  She had Honey Nut Cheerios (already sugary--don't let the "Cheerios" part fool you), and she was pouring in chocolate milk instead of regular milk.  First of all, gross.  Second of all, you're clashing flavors here. The sugary honey-coated Cheerios are their own sweet flavor experience, and it shouldn't be muddled with the whole other flavor experience of chocolate.  Though she would probably claim a simple logic:  I like sweet things, these are two sweet things, and two sweet things are better than one.

But the very best was when I saw a student, again in the morning, open up two sugar packets and pour them into her mouth.  I thought sure, why not.  Cut out the middle man.  What a hassle to get your sugar through your Gatorade and Coke and Pop Tarts and Twix bars. Why the whole sugar delivery system?  Why not just go straight to the source?


***Special note.  You know how everyone is trying to figure out how to transform those schools in the most violent, depressed, disenfranchised, desperate neighborhoods?  Here's something that might work:  take one of those schools and control a student's entire diet to only include healthy, low-fat, low-sugar foods.  And then institute daily meditation for good measure.  I guarantee you'd see results.

******Here's what I say to my students who eat loads of sugar but are also pride themselves as athletes:  "You love soccer, right?  You want to be the best, right?  It fills your time and your thoughts and it's a big part of your identity, is it not?  Well if it's that important, then why don't you have a better diet?  I know the blast of salt and sugar and fat tastes great, but is that minor and temporary pleasure worth a diminished athletic performance?  Is the brief gustatory thrill you get worth a worse performance on the field?  Do a simple cost benefit analysis.  Cost:  you get a little less pleasure not eating junk food.  Benefit:  you are a better athlete in the sport you are claiming to love and care so much about.