When health initiatives go wrong: removing chocolate milk from schools halves dairy consumption

While the current trend to remove ‘junk’ food from school canteens is done with the intention of improving children’s health, it can sometimes have quite the opposite effect.

In a Canadian study, researchers found that when flavoured milk is removed from a school, total milk intake drops by nearly half, impacting children’s calcium and vitamin D intakes.

The researchers used nutrient modelling to replace what was lost when children stopped drinking milk and found that combinations of foods tested were not feasible due to cost and the number of additional foods needed to replace the missing nutrients.

“While some schools may limit access to flavoured milk, presumably due to concerns that these beverages may provide unhealthy levels of added sugars and fats, the study showed that a very low number of children are drinking milk in school and the numbers dropped significantly (41%) when flavoured milk was removed,” the authors wrote.

“Additionally, of the students who chose plain milk, there was a greater amount of milk wasted. Given children’s preferential intake of chocolate milk, further studies into whether children will accept lower sugar formulations need to be investigated.”

The authors suggest that policies that promote drinking milk, rather than limiting it, should be implemented.

The study, Impact of the removal of chocolate milk from school milk programs for children in Saskatoon Canada, was published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. The research was supported by a grant from the Dairy Research Cluster, which includes Dairy Farmers of Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Dairy Commission.