Some experts souring on chocolate milk in schools

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In many school cafeterias, students face an important decision: White or chocolate milk?

Kids may prefer chocolate over white, but some critics say it has too much sugar. And, given the childhood obesity epidemic facing the country, they say it shouldn't be offered in schools at all.

But adding chocolate or other flavoring may be the best way to get kids to drink more milk, studies indicate.

Almost one of every three students was overweight or obese in fifth, seventh and ninth grades in Riverside County public schools, according to 2009 physical fitness data analyzed by the county Department of Public Health.

The Florida State Board of Education considered banning chocolate milk from schools earlier this year because of health concerns. The board is expected to take it up again this month, spokeswoman Deborah Higgins said in an e-mail.

In Southern California's Inland Empire Region, child nutrition directors say questions about chocolate milk's role in school lunches are arising more often, but so far none has stopped serving it.

Food service officials say they don't mind that about 80 percent of Inland students choose sugar-sweetened chocolate milk over white milk, because at least they are drinking milk.

"Above and beyond anything else, it's about getting the calcium into these kids," said Jill Lancaster, director of nutrition services for the Murrieta Valley Unified School District. "If it takes a little bit of chocolate to make the medicine go down, so be it."

California schools can't sell soda. Riverside schools offer milk, water and three kinds of 100 percent juice, said Rodney Taylor, nutrition services director for Riverside Unified School District.

Riverside schools typically serve nonfat chocolate milk and 2 percent white milk, both with 130 calories per 8-ounce carton. The chocolate milk has 23 grams of sugar, compared to white milk's 13 grams.

Food service workers at Alta Murrieta Elementary know what students like.

During a lunch last week, the cafeteria beverage cooler was well stocked with chocolate milk pouches, which statistics show are preferred by 88 percent of the school's students who drink milk. A tiny section of the cooler held regular milk pouches.

Some students said they would choose juice, not white milk, if chocolate were no longer offered.

"I wouldn't really care because there would still be juice," fifth-grader Megan Addonizio said.

That's one of the major arguments for keeping chocolate milk. Taylor is among those who worry that fewer students would drink milk if chocolate weren't offered.

Taylor said more comprehensive studies were needed about whether students really would drink plain milk if it were the only choice. Limited studies and pilot projects across the country suggest that students would not only drink less milk, they would buy fewer school lunches, Taylor said

The School Nutrition Association recently participated in a webinar with the Milk Processor Education Program. In the dairy industry's research at 58 schools nationwide, overall milk consumption dropped 35 percent when chocolate milk no longer was offered. Milk consumption didn't rebound during the study's second year. What's more, students who took white milk drank less and wasted more. (See study details at www.milkdelivers.org.)

Schools are required to offer milk with breakfast and lunch by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the National School Lunch Program. But schools can decide what type of milk to offer, USDA spokeswoman Jean Daniel said. The department is considering a recommendation to allow flavored milk only if it's low fat.

Preteen and teenage girls are developing the beginnings of osteoporosis and weakening of bones because they don't consume enough calcium, Daniel said. "We do know children are not consuming enough milk."

Julie Maniord, a San Bernardino County public health nutritionist and registered dietitian, said milk delivers three of the five nutrients that most often fall short in children's diets: calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Chocolate milk is "better than not drinking milk, and it's certainly better than other sugar-sweetened beverages that are more the culprits in childhood obesity," Maniord said.

The white versus chocolate milk debate is only a piece of the healthy eating issue. Most children and adults don't eat enough leafy greens and orange vegetables, Daniel said. "Only 3 percent of us nationwide meet all dietary guidelines. We're not eating enough whole grains, and we're eating too many calories and not exercising enough."

(Contact Riverside Press-Enterprise reporters Dayna Straehley and Michelle L. Klampe at dstraehley(at)PE.com and mklampe(at)PE.com, respectively.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)

Must credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.