KANSAS CITY, Mo. - You're probably familiar with the "Got Milk?" campaign.
Now the
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has launched their own milk campaign, called "Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk".
State health officials say they would rather have kids drinking mile without the added calories, but that the nutrients in chocolate milk make up for the added calories.
Denny Spurling, Bureau Chief of the State Health Department's Bureau of Health Promotion says, "The chocolate has its naysayers. There's more sugar and more calories in it. The opposing side from that says, yeah, but there's some kids that don't like milk, they probably won't drink milk unless you have it chocolate."
Spurling and other state health officials say the goal is to get children to drink milk, especially skim and low fat milk, even if it has a little flavoring poured into it.
"We want to see kids drink the milk and the low fat and skim milk is probably, we feel, more important than the added sugar," said Spurling.
The State Health Department tries to follow the Eat Smart guidelines, with the recommendation for low fat or skim milk, flavored or unflavored.
Some schools and lunch advocates are trying remove all flavored milk from cafeterias, but this actually could do more nutritional harm than good.
Chocolate milk is the most popular milk choice in schools, and kids are likely to drink less milk and get fewer nutrients if it's taken away.
A new study, presented at the American Dietetic Association's Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo on Oct. 20, 2009, found that when flavored milk was removed from a school district in Connecticut, milk selection dropped by as much as 67%.
