Halifax children’s hospital stops selling sugary drinks, promotes healthy choices

Visitors and staff at the IWK Health Centre may notice something missing from the cafeteria and restaurants at the children’s hospital: sugary drinks.

The hospital has stopped selling soft drinks and juices effective this week, including those that use artificial sweeteners.

READ MORE: How much sugar and how many calories are in your summertime drink?

The change impacts the IWK’s cafeteria, in-room service and gallery restaurants, including the Tim Hortons and Subway.

“We want kids to learn those healthy choices when they’re younger so they have those healthy behaviour changes,” said Brenda MacDonald, the director of corporate services at the hospital.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We want kids to learn those healthy choices when they're younger so they have those healthy behaviour changes," said Brenda MacDonald, the director of corporate services at the hospital.

“There is significant research that tells us that too much pop and juice helps us gain excess weight, to obesity and as well as other chronic disease onsets both in children and adults. Nova Scotians, you know, we have a lot of obesity and overweight folks and so we’re just really here to try again build that environment that promotes more of a healthy eating aspect.”

In place of the unhealthy beverages, the IWK has installed a ‘hydration station’ featuring free fruit and herb-infused water.

MacDonald stresses the hospital is not banning sugary drinks; patients and staff can still bring their own beverages into the facility.

Sugary drinks have become a target for health professionals

The Nova Scotia Dental Association recently called for stricter guidelines on marketing of sugary drinks to children. Several groups, including the Canadian Diabetes Association, have also called for an additional tax to be placed on them.

Dalhousie University professor, Sara Kirk, who is also the Canada Research Chair in Health Services Research, applauds the IWK’s latest initiative.

READ MORE: Nova Scotians among the most overweight, obese in Canada: CMAJ

Kirk studies obesity and chronic disease prevention and has looked at nutrition policies, particularly pertaining to children in schools. She says unhealthy foods, including sugar-laden drinks, are part of a bigger problem.

“One of the challenges that we have in Nova Scotia right now is that we have high rates of chronic disease – among the highest in the country actually and I think we really need to be thinking about why that is,” she said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "One of the challenges that we have in Nova Scotia right now is that we have high rates of chronic disease - among the highest in the country actually and I think we really need to be thinking about why that is," she said.

She hopes other institutions will follow suit and remove unhealthy foods and drinks from their menus.

“We really need to be thinking as a society whether it’s okay to be promoting unhealthy foods and unhealthy environments to our children — predatory marketing tactics for example, that are actually undermining health behaviours.”