I remember my Junior High School in NYC as a zoo . We took the city buses to and from school and every bus was packed to capacity with rowdy adolescents . Many faithfully stopped at the candy store each morning that was near the school bus stop. Some came to school with not just one pack of gum or a single candy bar, but a stash. Me with my meager allowance used to wonder where they got the cash. I later found out that all didn’t really have money which is why the store owner eventually got wise and allowed only two or three kids in the store at a time.
My observation even back then was that the kids with the huge candy stash were a disruptive bunch and usually those in the “slow” classes. Of course we weren’t genteel enough to refer to them as “slow.” We abused the “D” word quite a bit back then but hey, it was Junior High.
Fast forward 30 years Dr Yvonne Sanders Butler Principal of Browns Mill Elementary School in Lithonia Georgia figured it out . After she herself was diagnosed with hypertension, she grew very concerned about the large number of obese, diabetic and hypertensive children in her school. Since 1999 she has declared her school a Sugar Free Zone.
Of course there was some resistance at first by school officials and even some parents, but since she implemented the healthy eating and regular exercise program, test scores have gone up significantly, discipline problems have decreased and there are less obese children in the school. So Teaching our kids to eat healthy can solve a few problems. Hopefully they will also be taking their lessons about good nutrition back home.
Dr Sanders-Butler is also Author of “Healthy Kids Smart Kids”