Editorial: 'Water-only schools' has no bite unless home sugar intake also address

"Water-only schools" has been pushed as a way to combat Kiwi children's tooth decay issues. Photo / File

For the early part of my working life I had the privilege of commuting via Wellington's railway station.

I walked its marbled floors past the buskers, drunks in dark woollen jerseys and teams of cleaners fussing with brooms.

There was a particular cleaner who strapped her baby boy to her back while she worked.

Presumably the young mother had no one to mind the child while she laboured. It was an endearing portrait, except for the fact the backpacked toddler's daily breakfast was a Nestlé Milky Bar.

The bittersweet image returned to the old head this week on hearing broadcaster Jesse Mulligan's repeated call for "water-only schools" in the wake of appalling rates of sugar-related tooth decay in our youth.

During the segment he fired a broadside at the Government for alleged inaction: "I must say to David Clark, Health Minister — seriously? Working with the [sugary foods] industry to come up with guidelines to get people to eat less of the products created by the industry?"

Fair call.

The school initiative has apparently elicited a groundswell of support among dentists, who rightly point out that water-only schools would mean children can spend seven hours a day without sugar.

But this begs a question: when did school become the safe zone - and home so perilous?

Palming responsibility back to the state means that somewhere along the line we've ceased believing that children's primary caregivers are their parents.

Let's not forget the state currently provides free dental care for children — yet 120,000 Kiwi kids a year miss their dentist appointments. Surely that's a home-front issue.

The one statistic more wince-worthy than 120,000 young clinic no-shows is the 240,000 mums and dads who didn't care if they turned up.

Such apathy won't be remedied by water-only schools. Neither will seven hours of sugar-free schooling work if the children are free to chomp on milky bars at home.

It's a noble drive but an all too easy high-five.

Demonise sugar by all means - the less of it in our collective diet the better - but let's not ignore decay's other sources.