Chocolate Milk for Wellness??

Last week in class we talked about a competition that was put on by the Dairy Council in North Western Iowa: "Which school can drink the most chocolate milk:?" Decorah High School won. The prize money, around $15,000, is to be used for wellness activities/ facilities. I think this is irresponsible for a school to sponser a Chocolate milk contest.. 3 Cartons of chocolate milk (that the average Decorah high school kid consumed each day contains about 1/2 of the daily processed sugar that kids should be getting. I think the contest is a great idea to encourage milk drinking, but it should be WHITE milk! I am taking a Nutrition course this semester, and one day we discussed this event and its implications for children. By By encouraging kids to drink a few cartons of chocolate milk, we are in effect telling them that it is okay to eat that much sugar. Yes, kids are saying "At leeast it's better than pop." Sure, they may be right on that one, but there is still almost the same amount of sugar in both chocolate milk and pop. This contest just makes me laugh and cringe at the same time, thinking about how many more kids will now prefer chocolate milk to white milk.