In recent years, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) has come under fire for a variety of issues related to the organization’s annual cookie sales. Among other things, parents, bloggers and food advocates have questioned the cookies’ inclusion of trans fats and eco-unfriendly palm oil, as well as the organization’s lame attempt last year to pass off their (now discontinued) Mango Cremes as a substitute for real fruit. (The latter campaign inspired me to write “A Girl Scout Cookie Gets ‘Healthwashed,’ and Some Musings About Nutritionism and Our Kids.”)
But last week GSUSA ruffled even more feathers when Nestlé announced a new line of “limited-edition Nesquik Girl Scout Cookie Beverages,” flavored to taste like Thin Mints and other Girl Scout cookies. This isn’t the first licensing deal between the Girl Scouts and Nestlé – there’s also a series of Girl Scout-branded chocolate bars on the market – but given the growing concern over the role of sugar-sweetened beverages as a primary driver of childhood obesity and disease, for some critics this was the last straw.
Laurie David, co-producer of Fed Up, a documentary focusing on the prevalence of sugar in our food supply, had a scathing piece about the beverages in yesterday’s HuffPo. After noting that the drinks contain up to 48 grams of sugar per bottle — three to four times the amount of sugar a child can safely consume each day — David writes:
Girl Scout president Anna M. Chavez, the first Latina woman to lead this organization of more than 3.2 million girls and adults, surely has heard about the dramatic rise in kids getting adult-type 2 diabetes, a phenomenon virtually unheard of a decade ago–perhaps in conversation with the country’s leading childhood obesity advocate AND former Girl Scout Michele Obama before she addressed the organization in honor of its one hundredth anniversary? Given the sad fact that Hispanic kids are at even greater risk of diabetes (they are marketed more to than their white counterparts), Chavez’s decision to use the Girl Scout brand to help promote the very thing that’s making them sick is truly baffling.
Now Monica Serratos, a mother of four and a Girl Scout troop leader, has just launched a Change.org petition asking GSUSA to end the beverage partnership with Nestlé. She posted the petition on TLT’s Facebook page this morning and I’m glad to share it here with you.
Ironically enough, GSUSA actually refers to itself as “the leading authority on girls’ healthy development,” and its website offers numerous fact sheets and reports relating to childhood obesity. Yet this purported focus on “healthy development” doesn’t seem to extend to the group’s own fundraising tactics. In that regard, the Girl Scouts seems no different from many schools and PTAs around the country, which likely care about kids’ health but still inevitably take the easiest path for raising revenue: selling junk food.
On that note, let me remind everyone of a Tweetchat starting in just a few hours on healthy school fundraising, hosted by Moms Rising and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. It will take place between 1-2pm EST, using the hashtag #FoodFri.
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