I don’t know if you caught my post on sugar consumption a while back, but basically, it was about what we already kind of know {and probably don’t want to admit }…we eat too much sugar. So, when I saw this article about a boy named Ryan Storm, it made me smile. Ryan is a 13 year old Canadian blogger and, from what it sounds like, health advocate.
During one of his lunch breaks at school, he listened to a speaker from the Canadian Sugar Institute who was touting sugar as being part of a healthy diet. The speaker was brought in by the school as part of their “Healthy Hub” initiative, but it was immediately clear to Ryan that the speaker was spreading faulty information. Ryan began to ask pointed questions of the speaker about the accuracy of his presentation, until eventually, the speaker became uncomfortable Ryan was asked to stop.
The school consequently put out a statement apologizing for promoting sugar, and promised to vet the speakers better in the future.
How cool is it that this 13 year old kid already gets the impact of his food choices on his health? He is totally ahead of the game, if you ask me. He knows his stuff, he’s not afraid to stand up to supposed authority figures and question them. If we can get the next generation to scale back on sugar on their own accord, their lives will be so much healthier. I guess educating kids about nutrition really does go a long way.
Meanwhile, listen to the audio as Ryan tells his family about the presentation…I love that his mom asks if he was polite the whole time. Moms will be moms–we can’t help ourselves.
CSI: Sugar from Ryan Storm on Vimeo.
~Mavis
Miriam says
If you click the link, on the ad it says that you have to make sure your kids get sugar ‘every day’ because sugar is what it takes to live. While technically true, what they don’t say is that any carbohydrate is basically sugar, so if you are feeding your kids fruits, vegetables and grains with no sugar added, they are getting sugar in their diet. There is no need to add sugar into foods to get sugar in your body.
Ug, I can’t believe they allowed that in a school. Someone didn’t do their homework and it wasn’t the kids.
InT says
I applaud this boy for knowing better than to believe every agenda driven group that enters his school for one sneaky reason or another. But on another note:
Every year they always find a villain food to put down. Butter was bad at one point, bread was bad at one point, milk, salt etc. I think everything in moderation and balance will never cause harm to a body. There are countries where they eat straight salted pork fat and the people are not obese or sick from it. Anything can become bad for you if you over load on it, like so many people in the west do. Even things we call healthy. Even kale can be bad for you if you eat too much, did you know you could die if you eat 2 -3 tsp full of nutmeg? Yes people, Read this link if you want to learn more on how http://nutritionfacts.org/2013/10/31/nutmeg-toxicity/ Sometimes I think all these diet gurus, all these doctors and scientists make a profitable business trying to “inform”(instill fear, take away our freedom) us of all these amazing things they found out so we down load their videos, buy their books, and book their seminars. I say, just relax, eat whole foods in balance and moderation and sleep well at night.