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Tricks and Treats: Sugar at Wooster

Here at Wooster School, like many schools, we love a good party and we love the treats that come with them. We love the treats so much that they have transcended the parties. Bowls and jars of candy, cupcakes, cookies and the current favorite -- donuts -- abound. I see so many Dunkin’ Donuts boxes that if I didn’t know better, I’d think that we had a franchise somewhere on campus. The other day I got a plate containing all of the treats that I had missed at an office birthday party -- a piece of crumb cake, 8 Dove chocolates, a cupcake, and six grapes. At first I thought it was someone being funny. The tradition is that everyone brings something and the natural assumption is that it should be something sweet. After all, it’s a birthday party, right?

It’s a good thing that we are a community that celebrates birthdays -- lots of special days -- and even looks to include those who can’t make the actual event. It’s always nice to know that people are thinking about you. Good will notwithstanding, that bountiful plate also created a dilemma for me, one which Tom Rath writes about in Eat, Move, Sleep, our faculty community read from this past summer. While I appreciate the thought that this plate full of various, sugar-laden delights represented, I am trying to practice healthier habits, which includes not eating as much sugar.

According to Rath, we are not to blame for craving sugar, which goes back to the fact that when foraging for food, our ancient ancestors figured out that things that were sweet were generally not poisonous. That said, Rath also points out the insidious nature of sugar’s effect on us today. Because sugar “fires the reward regions in our brain,” the brain subsequently wants more. Over time, the brain also builds up a tolerance, meaning that each time that you consume sugar during the day, your body will want even “larger quantities over time to mimic the pleasurable sensation.” Why is this bad? Rath is very straightforward on this point:

     Sugar is a toxin. It fuels diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer. At the current dose we consume, more than 150 pounds per person, every year, sugar and its derivatives kill more people than cocaine, heroin, or any other controlled substance.

     One report aptly described sugar as “candy for cancer cells.” It accelerates aging and inflammation in the body and subsequently fuels tumor growth. It is now clear that if you lower your sugar intake, you reduce the odds of cancer.

Rath’s list goes on, but I think you get the point. We can also throw in weight gain, tooth decay, and the negative behavioral effects that excess sugar has on children and adolescents. It is fairly clear that soda and other sugary drinks and snacks are a major driver of our national obesity epidemic. If you don’t believe your own eyes (just take a look around the next time you are at the movies, for instance). Rath also provides 25 pages of notes at the end of his book that point the more ambitious reader to the studies that he referenced in order to write his book.

One great way to eat less sugar is to arrange things so that there isn’t as much around for you to pop into your mouth whenever you feel like it. By changing our environment and our habits, we can eliminate behaviors that are not good for us. I know that some people think that I dislike candy, cupcakes, ice cream, and the myriad other creations that we’ve designed to get that sugar into our bodies, but the exact opposite is true. I love all of it. But, that’s the problem. I love all of it, and it is not good for me. So, for instance, I don’t keep any chocolate in my office. I love chocolate and people seem to like to give it to me, but if I don’t have it nearby, I am less likely to unwrap a few Hershey’s Kisses after lunch, something that I did religiously for many years. It’s been a full year since I stopped doing that, but I still feel the urge for something sweet every day after lunch. My brain is unknowingly working against me in this regard.

So, what does a Head of School do with all of this information? First, he gets his own house in order, and I’m working on that. I’ve probably reduced my additional sugar intake by at least half in the last year. The less I eat, the less I want. The responsible Head of School also asks himself the usual question -- “what does this mean for the students that I serve, and the broader community that we’ve created with our school?” The answer is that we start to make some changes that will benefit our children, and the adults here at Wooster, in the short and long term. We’ll still have birthday celebrations with cupcakes, etc. and other times when we can have some treats, but it is the frequency and amounts that we’ll be focusing on. We’ll also be doing our best to promote healthy alternatives like fruits, nuts, and other more savory foods. We are not going cold turkey, but I have asked my Division Heads and our Parents’ Association to look at the patterns and behaviors and start to amend them. For instance, the fall pears in the dining room these past two weeks have been amazing.

Changing these habits is particularly challenging because sugar frequently rides in on the coattails of a celebration, or is offered as a reward for doing something good. Over time, the celebrations have become more about the cake or cupcakes, and less about the actual reason for celebrating. As a result, despite the scientific evidence, and the simple good sense behind a reduction in sugar consumption, I have found that some parents simply disagree. The logic goes something like this: We like having parties, kids like parties, and without sugary treats it is not a party. Therefore, if you eliminate the treats, you are depriving the kids of their fun. They will be sad. So, I do recognize that this will be a slight cultural shift for all of us, but does anyone else remember having a smoking area for students at your high school? We had one at mine, and no one thought twice about it until the scientific evidence about smoking started to work its way into our conversations. By altering our behaviors based upon the overwhelming evidence, we are also doing what we are trying to teach our students to do here at Wooster -- be curious about and open to new information and ideas, study them in more depth, think about their relevance and applicability in our own lives, and then act in an ethically responsible way to initiate a positive change.

So here is my challenge to the Wooster community: work with me to reduce the amount of sugary treats that we are bringing on to campus. I am working with faculty, staff, and Chef Rick to make sure that we aren’t asking students and parents to do this as much, and I’m counting on you to not provide the opportunities for your children either. Believe it or not, I’d like to get us to a place where we might actually offer a dessert once a week in the Dining Room. When we combine this with birthdays and various other opportunities, we’ll be approaching a moderate, appropriate level of additional sugar, and kids who are developing healthier behaviors and habits for life.

So, back to my plate of sugary delights. In the past, I would have simply placed the plate on the desk in the public area of the office and the cakes and candies would have disappeared in a couple of hours -- casually and unthinkingly gobbled up by students and adults as they wandered through. Good for me, but not good for those people. After having read Rath’s book, and his account of a very similar event in his own life, I could not simply put the plate, full of things that were too unhealthy for me to eat, out for others to eat, could I? Though it was painful, I ate the grapes and threw the rest away.

Work Referenced:

Eat, Move, Sleep by Tom Rath

Another great book about food and choices (though more global):

The Ominvore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan