By IRENE MANAHAN Special to the Daily Press
SANTA MONICA COLLEGE Students here might be hard pressed to buy a Coke and keep it company, as administrators are mulling whether to renew their deal with a leading soft drink manufacturer.
The SMC Board of Trustees is looking into the appropriateness of selling Coca-Cola products on its campuses in light of some unhealthy factors. Further complicating the decision is the company’s profit-sharing of all school grounds sales, which amounts to between $60,000 and $70,000 per year for the school.
While making healthy food and drink options available to its students has been a running concern for the college’s administration, the Coca-Cola motion surfaced just recently.
“It was entirely serendipitous that the contract came up for renewal at this time,” said the board’s vice chair, Rob Rader.
In the overall campaign to promote good health on campus, the Coke debate is just the beginning of a much larger debate, Rader said. While it could spell the end for Coca-Cola at SMC, it could very well also mark the start of a healthy transformation at the college.
“Student health is really a larger conversation, and we have to start somewhere,” said Rader. “The Coca- Cola contract is a baby step.”
Naturally, there is disagreement among students, most of whom expressed appreciation for having options open to them. While good health is important issue, so is the freedom of choice.
“We’re supposed to be maturing into adults at this college, and so we need to make our own choices,” said Ivette Herrador, a 22-year-old SMC student. “I have the choice to drink Coke on or off campus, but I just don’t want to. We should have the choice of whether to drink soda or not. Why ban those who do choose to have it?”
However, those in favor of removing Coke from the school argue their decision is not about taking away freedom from the students, but about providing them with more beneficial alternatives.
Numerous K-12 institutions in school districts across the nation have already adapted policies to provide healthier foods on their respective campus, as well as sever ties with fast food and soft drink sponsors.
Each soda can typically contains about 250 calories.
“Even if someone drinks just one less Coke a day, it’s a start,” Rader said. “It creeps up on you. People could gain as much as an extra pound a week by drinking two additional bottles of Coke per day.
“Obesity is the number-one health crisis in America. This is the first generation predicted to have a shorter life span than its parents because of obesity.”
The Center for Science and Public Interest calls such carbonated sodas “liquid candy,”according to the center’s 1998 and 2005 updated report. Still, the college is not looking to ban every Coca-Cola product. Dasani, a purified bottled water, and even Diet Coke, for example, are still healthier replacements.
Rather than just delegating what the companies can place in their machines, Rader suggests providing a diet or water choice for every regular soda.
Since 1998, the sale of non-diet sodas has decreased by 12 percent, according to the Center for Science and Public Interest.
“I hate to say it,” Rader said of the soft drink manufacturer’s sponsorship deal with the school, “but in the long run those numbers aren’t necessarily significant.
“It’s not worth mortgaging our students’ health.”
School officials are expected to come back to the board with suggestions in April.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 29, 2007. Read the original PDF.