Sugar: Why these children quit
Two decile 1 schools, in the centre of two fast food meccas, quit sugar and never looked back. Rachel Thomas reports for Stuff’s Sugar Fix project.
On the steps of Room 1, students Cheryl Simi and Chantal Faraimo are tuning the nylon strings on guitars. They launch into a waiata, He Ho¯ nore, and their mates flock around them and join in.
There are just 85 students at Glenview School, and a clear camaraderie between them.
Glenview sits on the edge of the picture-perfect Belmont Regional Park in Porirua. But, this is the decile 1 area of Cannons Creek.
These students’ families are among the poorest in the city.
The neighbourhood is a hub for dairies filled with cheap, sugary comfort food, targeted at children with pocket money.
‘‘Lunch packs’’ stuffed with bright yellow pineapple drinks, chocolate bars and cookie packets sell for $2 and $3.
Yet still, the students here are more likely to be heard biting into an apple than popping open a bag of chips.
The school has been this way for more than 20 years – no-one has been around long enough to remember when sugar reigned supreme at Glenview.
Most of the students are Pasifika – the majority Tokelauan and Samoan. Many are Ma¯ ori. Some are refugees. Two are Pa¯ keha.
Deputy principal Lester Mohi is among the longest-serving staff members, yet even when he got here in 1996, the school had a water policy.
The principal at the time, Pauline Thomas, noticed the poor health issues in the community and formalised a healthy eating programme.
‘‘We noticed the chemical nature of the foods ... it doesn’t take a rocket science degree to know that this is not going to be conducive to good learning.’’
She used to line the children up and walk up and down inspecting their lunchboxes, Mohi says.
The policy is less authoritarian now – it’s so ingrained that children generally show up with sandwiches and low-sugar snacks; those that don’t have been known to surrender their junk food voluntarily.
‘‘There’s a sort of daily amnesty – if they are given anything,’’ principal Lynda Knight-de Blois says, pulling a bag of Twisties out of her drawer.
The school is supported by food charities Eat My Lunch and Kids Can, which means children who show up without healthy options don’t go hungry.
Knight-de Blois recently took a group of students down to three of these shops to pick a few of the ready-made lunch packs and measure the nutritional content.
They averaged around 40g of sugar each.
Knight-de Blois feared a sugar tax might be too simplistic on its own, and says subsidised drinking fountains, and maybe age restrictions on buying sugary drinks, particularly energy drinks would be useful measures too.
‘‘For our community, just taxing it, I’m not sure it would be effective.’’
Yendarra School, Otara, South Auckland
Further north, Yendarra School’s smiling students have become something of poster children for a water-only policy.
What started as an idea at an end-of-year board meeting in 2006, led to a change embraced by parents and students of the south Auckland school the following year.
The number of extractions due to decay halved over the following seven years, according to a study by Auckland Regional Public Health Service.
Lead author and public health physician Dr Simon Thornley and his team examined 3813 dental records of children in surrounding schools and found the number of cavities in primary and adult teeth was significantly lower for Yendarra’s pupils, when compared to schools that were similar.
Principal Susan Dunlop says the school, a decile 1a, used to have poor attendance rates, bad behaviour and children were lethargic before the policy was introduced.
‘‘On a scale of one to 10, it was about a one. We knew they were not reaching their potential.’’
Sugar was ‘‘entrenched’’ in the Otara community and the diets of the students. Most of the families have friends or relatives with type 2 diabetes, Dunlop says.
‘‘It’s a local shopping centre – it’s fast food capital. It’s cheap food.’’
Some things improved ‘‘overnight’’ as students ditched the sugar fix, and long-term, the difference had been huge ‘‘in all areas of children’s performance’’, she says.
The line of naughty children outside her office got shorter, and children weren’t so sleepy in the afternoons.
Now staff might see the odd bottle of fizzy every few years, Dunlop says. ‘‘It usually stops us in our tracks.’’
Dunlop, who is first to admit the school is ‘‘more do-ey than hui’’ says there were no big policies, no drafted programmes, and no long academic papers to back it up. ‘‘There are some things you just have to do and this thing – we just did.’’
‘Urgent’ law needed: dentist
The New Zealand Dental Association spokesman Dr Rob Beaglehole is this month approaching the Government with a plea to implement a water-only policy for all primary schools.
‘‘We want the Government to urgently, immediately adopt a water-only policy across all schools.
‘‘That would have massive ramifications.’’
Dr Simon Thornley, a public health senior lecturer at Auckland University, says Ma¯ ori children typically have two rotten teeth by the time they reach the age of five. Pacific children have three.
His research has found sugar addiction plays a strong role in behavioural problems with children. ‘‘It’s driven by cravings and irritability which you see in other addictions.’’
That can lead to impulsive behaviour and aggression, as well as depressive symptoms, he says.
‘‘If you want kids to learn well and concentrate in class then getting them off sugar is very important. Sugar hooks them on to this steam train.’’
Health Minister David Clark would not be drawn on whether he would support this, but says he expects schools will increasingly adopt water only policies ‘‘as they realise the health ramifications of not doing that’’.
‘‘If you want kids to learn well and concentrate in class then getting them off sugar is very important.’’ Dr Simon Thornley, Auckland University