The lure of soda
Annual Drop The Pop campaign faces uphill battle
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
ARVIAT
Arnalukjuak High School (JAHS) applied a slightly different approach in making the annual Drop.
The Paterson family, Ross, Charlene, Roen and Nuatii, from back, take a slide down the hill on a day of promoting healthy lifestyles during the Drop The Pop campaign in Arviat earlier this month. - photo courtesy of Kim Dymond
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The Pop campaign a successful one in Arviat earlier this month.
JAHS teacher Courtney Cribb co-organized the activities, and said keeping youths away from soft drinks is a tough sell.
She said the Government of Nunavut sent manuals to help with the annual promotion this year.
"The manuals had suggestions for student activities; things teachers could do in the classroom and others to do as a school," said Cribb.
"We used some of those, and came up with others ourselves, to plan an activity for each day of the week, including sliding and skating.
"The whole purpose, of course, is to challenge students to drop the pop, and that's probably the hardest thing to try and get them to do.
"We only had 10 or 11 students sign-up to say they were actually going to try to drop the pop during the week."
Cribb said the vast majority of students have no interest in not drinking pop for a week.
She said that led the school to host activities to show them what they're putting into their bodies when they drink pop and energy drinks.
"We're trying to teach them to make healthier choices and to understand what they're drinking because we have students who drink four or five cans of pop a day.
"Since we didn't get many kids to participate, we put more of a focus on eating healthy, being involved with physical activity and just trying to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
"In addition to our activity days and some games we held, we hosted a healthy breakfast one morning, passed out muffins some of the teacher participants made during the breaks on another day and demonstrated during an assembly the amount of sugar and caffeine in pop and energy drinks and how bad they are for those who drink them.
"The worst part is, you know many of the students aren't going to listen and they're going to keep drinking pop, so we hope a few of them will get the message and, at least, cut down on the amount they drink."
