NEWS RELEASE

November 27, 2001

Sunday Gazette-Mail

Students Take Nutrition Challenge

Drinking milk is cool and healthy, too.

That was the message last Tuesday at Montrose Elementary School, where the students participated in the Principal’s Nutrition Challenge.

Montrose was one of 50 schools across the nation to participate in the event, which was sponsored by the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council Mid East.

Montrose Principal Julie Hedge challenged her students to make a commitment to calcium and to choose milk over soft drinks. “It’s to promote the benefits of milk and that it’s cool to drink it,” Hedge said.

During a school assembly, cheerleaders and athletes from South Charleston High School led cheers and spoke to the students about why drinking milk is healthy. There was also a contest in which students tried to guess the identities of five milk mustachioed staff members from photographs. The pictures only showed the staff members’ mouths.

Fifth-grader George “Tate” Ewing was the first to correctly identify the staff members. He won a special “got milk?” scooter.

Students also signed a pledge to drink milk for strong bones and teeth and to eat foods that are rich in calcium.

Vanessa Miles, a registered dietician with the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council Mid East, organized the event. Miles covers West Virginia as nutrition communication and program coordinator for the dairy council.

“Nutrition education is also part of the assembly,” Miles said.

She said nine out of 10 girls and seven out of 10 boys don’t get enough calcium in their diets. “We’re in a calcium crisis, “ she said.

She said milk consumption among young people has decreased markedly since the early 1970s, while the consumption of soft drinks and other sweet drinks, spurred on by aggressive marketing and advertising, has skyrocketed.

For instance, studies have shown that children between the ages of 8 and 12 increase their soda consumption by four times, while milk intake decreases, and teen-agers are drinking two to three times as much soft drinks while cutting their milk consumption by more than 40 percent.

Programs like the Principal’s Nutrition Challenge are designed to reverse that trend. “It’s important at this age level to encourage milk consumption. Good habits begin here,” she said.

Beginning at age 9, children need at least four servings of dairy products a day until they are 19 year old. “Those are the peak years for bone mass development. Studies have shown that consumption of dairy foods helps to prevent osteoporosis, stress fractures and certain cancers,” Miles said.