Can Sugar-Packed Milks Be Considered "Healthy"?

There's a lot of speculation about the nature of our obesity epidemic. What's causing it exactly? Is it fast food or high-fructose corn syrup or hours of TV watching? Maybe it has to do with chemicals. Is there a silver bullet that will solve the problem? Scientists are hard at work designing studies to get to the bottom of this tricky conundrum.

But what if we were to stop waiting for experts to tell us everything and apply a little good, old-fashioned logic to the situation? What we should do is look at the fact that at every possible juncture in children's lives, the industrial food universe's marketing machine is bent on training our kids to adore sweet things. Exhibit A: Mead Johnson's Enfagrow Premium, a line of toddler formula for kids one-to-three years old, whose main claim to fame is a huge amount of sugar, according to ABC News.

After public uproar over the the line's chocolate-flavored formula, the company pulled that particular one off the shelves. But a variety of other super-sweet options are still for sale, most notably the "vanilla" version, which contains 16 to 17 grams of sugar.

The most absurd — and telling — part of this situation is the way the company framed its decision to drop the chocolate flavor. The company seemed to blame the consumer for being so silly as to "associate" chocolate with sugary, bad-for-you foods.

"The whole emotional, evocative nature of chocolate," said Mead Johnson spokesman Chris Perille. "It's more associated with candy and sweets and things potentially not as beneficial. Flavor was more in conflict with a nutritious product."

Silly, silly common people! Why can't they just believe the corporate "experts" who tell them that feeding their little children chocolate-flavored, sugar-laced milk is actually good for them? I mean, the sweet concoction is loaded up with 25 additives meant to boost growth, brain development, and immunity. The sugar and the chocolate flavor, says the company, are just for those "picky eaters."

It seems to me that we consumers need a little dose of self-empowerment. We all know that one-year-olds should not be eating a lot of sugar. We need to stop looking to corporations to tell us how to feed our children and start relying on what we all already know: That children should eat fruits and vegetables, and kids should consume few sweets and snack foods.

And someone needs to tell these corporate birds-of-prey that they need to stop telling parents a box of  sugar-loaded milk will make their children strong, healthy, and smart. You can pack a million immune-boosting additives into a cup of sugar, but the kid is still eating a cup of sugar.

Photo: acopperpenny via Flickr