Teen loses 28kg after fizzy ban

Every day after school, Tiraroa Hetaraka and his mates would stock up on fizzy drinks and snacks at a nearby dairy.

‘‘That’s how I got really big,’’ the 17-year-old said. He wanted to make a change in 2017 and his school going water-only was the ‘‘boost’’ he needed.

After fizzy drinks were banned, he started going to the gym and then ‘‘everything started flowing’’. One year later, he’s down 28kg.

Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori o Hoani Waititi is one of 40 West Auckland schools which went water-first over the past year.

The rate of obesity in Ma¯ori communities was one factor that prompted principal Hare Rua to sign up for the programme.

Seventeen per cent of Ma¯ori children were obese, the NZ Health Survey 2017/18 found, compared with 12 per cent nationally. Rua said making the switch to water was about building a generation of rangatahi who were empowered to make healthy choices. It had been a success, he said – the children had become the ‘‘sugar-free police’’ and they weren’t afraid to call adults out if they weren’t sticking to the policy. Students had even created a wai wero haka to challenge other schools to go water-only.

Tiraroa said he knew how hard it was for a lot of teenagers to give up sugary drinks.

However, he encouraged other students to try drinking just water for a week to see the difference. He said even though he made the switch at school, it had affected the rest of his life.

‘‘I wake up feeling fresh ... everything just feels good, [my] body feels good,’’ he said.

Teachers had noticed an improvement in students’ energy levels, Rua said, but the benefits went beyond the kura.

Students had become more interested in health and eating well, and they championed that at home, he said.

After the school signed up with Healthy Families Waitakere, a new water fountain was installed, and five more have been added since.

For Rua, the main thing was access – if the water’s there, children will drink it.