The China Study by Thomas Campbell

294 THE CHINA STUDY

thousands of schools; it distributes information to principals at national

conferences; it runs back-to-school promotions with over 20,000 schools;

and it runs sports promotions targeted toward youth.

Should we be worried? In a word, yes. If you are curious as to what

kind of "education" is being taught by the dairy industry, take a look at

their Web site.^9 When I visited the site in July 2003, one of the first bits

of information to greet me was, ''July is National Ice Cream Month."

Upon clicking for more information on National Ice Cream Month, I

read, "If you're wondering if you can have your ice cream and good

nutrition too, the answer is 'yes'!"9 Great. So much for combating child-

hood obesity and diabetes!

The Web site is divided up into three sections, one for educators, one

for parents and one for food service professionals. When I looked at the

Web site in July 2003 (the Web site regularly changes its content), in

the educator portion of the site, teachers could download lesson plans

to teach nutrition to their classrooms. Lesson plans included making

hand puppets of cows and dairy foods and doing a finger play. Once

the puppets are made, the teacher should "[ tl ell the students they're

going to meet five special friends, and these friends want boys and girls

to grow up to be strong and healthy."9 Another lesson was "Dairy Treat

Day," where each child gets to taste cheese, pudding, yogurt, cottage

cheese and ice cream.^9 Or teachers could lead their classes in making

"Moo Masks."9 For the more advanced fourth grader, teachers could do

a lesson plan from Pyramid Explorations in which students explore the

five food groups, and their health benefits, as follows^9 :

Milk Group (Build strong bones and teeth.)

Meat Group (Build strong muscles.)

Vegetable Group (Help you see in the dark.)

Fruit Group (Help heal cuts and bruises.)

Grain Group (Give us energy.)

Based on the evidence presented in the previous chapters, you know
that if this is what our children are learning about nutrition and health
then we are in for a painful journey, courtesy of Dairy Management,
Inc. Obviously neither kids nor their parents are learning about how
milk has been linked to Type 1 diabetes, prostate cancer, osteoporosis,
multiple sclerosis or other autoimmune diseases, and how casein, the
main protein in dairy foods, has been shown to experimentally promote
cancer and increase blood cholesterol and atherosclerotic plaque.