Description

For this lesson, make sure everyone has a piece of paper and something to write with, as well as the printouts on the right side of this page. (But not the answers!)

You’ll also need to get some juices from the kitchen, white sugar, a teaspoon, and two plates.

Review of screen time section

In the last lesson about screen time, who can remember what our goals were?
Let the children try to answer. If they need help, answers are here:

• Let’s make sure to turn the television off if nobody’s really watching it.
• Let’s make sure to eat our food in the kitchen or dining room, and while we’re eating—no screen time!
• Keep track of your screen time each day, and when you’ve reached two hours, replace your screen time with healthy activity. If you’ve had plenty of exercise already, reading a book, making artwork or crafts, or even just having a conversation with other family members is also good.
•  Avoid texting during family meals or other time set aside for family activities.

How did we do? If we need to do better, what steps should we take?

Now, let's find out what kids need to know about sugary drinks.

What kids need to know about sugary drinks

What do you usually drink with breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? As a snack?
Have your children write breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. For each meal, ask them to write down what they like to drink and how much—a small glass of milk or a large one? a can of soda or just one small glass?

OK, now let’s add up the amount of teaspoons of sugar in each drink.
From your kitchen, get the drinks your children name and take a look at the labels. Sugar is listed in grams on the food labels, by serving size. For example, one serving of cranberry juice has 30 grams of sugar. One serving of Tropicana “Lots of Pulp” orange juice has 22 grams. To find the amount of teaspoons per serving, divide the grams by four. Cranberry juice has about 7.5 teaspoons per serving, and orange juice has 4.5, etc.

For a (12-oz) can of pop: 10 teaspoons
For a bottle of pop: 20 teaspoons
For fruit juice: It depends on the kind of juice, so look at the label.

Now, let’s add up the sugar to figure out how much you get from drinks every day.
Ask them to put their total number of teaspoons at the bottom of the page, with a circle around it.

How many teaspoons of sugar per day should kids have in a healthful food plan?

Ask them to guess a number, just for fun. The answer is about 3 teaspoons per day. How does that compare with the number you usually have each day?

Kitchen exercise

1. On one plate, ask your children to measure and pour the amount of sugar they usually get in one day.
2. On another plate, ask them to put about 3 teaspoons.
3. Ask them to compare the two, and let them share their thoughts with you about it.

Why do you think we shouldn’t get too much sugar?
Ask them for their ideas, but make sure they get this message:

• One of the main reasons is that sugar isn’t very healthy, plus it adds calories to your daily amount of food.
• It can cause you to have extra weight on your body, and it doesn’t give you any vitamins and minerals.
• It’s not good for your teeth—it can cause cavities.
• Too much sugar isn’t good for your heart.
• Whenever we eat or drink, our goal is to have things that are good for us, not things that can give us health problems.

What about diet pop?

• Here’s the thing about diet pop:
• It doesn’t have sugar in it, but it does have other chemicals that dieticians aren’t sure are good for you.
• There haven’t been enough tests on them to see how they affect kids’ bodies. There isn’t any proof that they help people to lose weight.

Guess what we need to do now?

You can get a lot of sugar from drinks! We need to make sure that you still drink plenty of liquids every day, but we also need to find ways to make sure we’re not getting too much sugar from drinks.

• If we take out some of the sugary drinks, we need to replace them with other, healthier drinks.
• It might seem like fruit juice should be healthy, but fruit juice has a lot of sugar, so it’s not a good idea to drink a lot of it. You can get the same nutrition, and a lot less sugar, by eating a piece of real fruit instead.
• Water gets the job done. It quenches your thirst, and it doesn’t have any sugar or any calories. It won’t make you gain any extra weight.
• Milk has some sugar in it, but it also has calcium and vitamins, so it’s good for you. Plus you can drink low-fat milk, which is even better for you than whole milk.

Mighty milk challenge: 1% versus 2% versus skim

White milk comes in four varieties:

• whole (full fat)
• 2% fat
• 1% fat
• skim (zero fat)

Let the kids answer these questions first:

Who should drink whole milk?
Answer: Children 12 months to 24 months (1-2 years old). After that, kids should switch to low-fat or skim. Babies (0-11 months) should drink breastmilk. 

What kind of milk do we drink at home?
If they don’t know, let them get the milk out of the refrigerator to check. If you have more than one kind, take them both out so the kids can compare fat and calories.

Mild Activity: does it really matter whether what kind of milk we drink?
Yes! Look at the differences in calories and fat for each kind.

Get out the Drink Nutrition Labels and Milk Activity worksheet you printed at the beginning of the lesson. Use the nutrition labels to fill in the chart and answer the questions on the worksheet. What did you learn about sugar in your drinks? 

Challenge:

• If you usually drink whole milk, switch to 2% by the end of one week, 1% by the end of two weeks, and skim by the end of three weeks.
• If you usually drink 2%, switch to 1% by the end of one week, and skim milk by the end of two weeks.
• The first person in the family to drink only skim milk gets to choose the next family exercise activity.

Decreasing sugary drinks: Goals for the week

• Each day, try to have a little less sugar from drinks than you had the day before. One way to encourage this is to just measure out your teaspoons of sugar at the end of each day. Just seeing it each day and watching the pile shrink is a reward. Compare the numbers at the end of the week. Did you have less sugar each day?
• If you don’t already drink skim milk, work toward that goal. If you don’t like it at first, mix in some whole or 2%, and gradually change it each day to more low fat milk. Most people really do get used to the skim milk after a little while.
• Try to think of pop—diet and regular—as a once-a-week treat. Each day, drink less and less, and replace it with water or 1% or skim milk.

Changes can be hard to make, but remember—we’re doing this together for the health of our family.