Brian Rudman: Waste of resources to give kids bottled water

Not before time, the Government is planning to spend $3 million a year to help schools become healthier eating environments. But I do object to part of this tax money being wasted on classroom water filters and on subsidising sales of bottled water to the kids.

Auckland kids have access to free tap water every bit as safe and pure as anything out of a bottle or a tap filter system, so why is the Government encouraging them to use anything else?

Not only is it bad advice to be teaching young and impressionable consumers, it's also a waste of their pocket money, and of school funds.

A year ago a water filter salesman made a killing out of at least nine Manukau schools that should have known better. He peddled them fancy filtered water fountains at $2300 apiece. One principal, who forked out for six fountains, told his local paper that "we wanted to get the chemicals out of their [the kids'] drinking water and because we've banned softdrinks at school we needed to offer a decent alternative".

But Auckland's public water supply has none of the scary poisons the filter industry proudly claim their products remove - evils such as arsenic and bacteria.

Individual school boards getting sucked into the filter scam is bad enough, but we should expect better of the Ministry of Education and the Greens, who are claiming credit for the Nutrition Fund for schools.

The fund can be used for, among other things, replacing school vending machine contents "with water and fruit juice, nuts, dried fruit and crackers", and for the "installation of water filters in classrooms".

Greens health and safe food spokeswoman Sue Kedgley, who jointly launched the initiative with Education Minister Steve Maharey, tells me it's "basically up to the schools to decide what they want to do with the funds".

She considers removing fizzy drinks and chocolate from the school diet a small price to pay for bottled and filtered water. And from the health point of view, she's right. Except perhaps for the fact that bottled water lacks the fluoride needed to keep growing teeth healthy. But as a warrior for consumer protection, her capitulation is surprising.

After all, accompanying Ms Kedgley's annual school lunch survey in July was a review of the results by independent dietitian Sarah Crawford.

The dietitian noted that "the number of schools selling water has increased, but really do we need to sell water when it comes out of a tap? Everyone should be encouraged to bring a water bottle to school which they can either fill up from the tap at home or at school. We are privileged in New Zealand that we are able to turn on the tap, whether at home or school, and our water is safe to drink.

"It is very sophisticated marketing seducing our children to think that bottled water is preferable. This is an unnecessary expense for the child."

Green MP Nandor Tanczos was even more scathing, declaring this year that "bottled water is a multi-million-dollar scam that is threatening the environment and sucking money out of people's pockets".

Even bottled water industry spokesman Tony Gentile, in a March "fact sheet", admitted "we are fortunate in Australia and New Zealand to have a safe water supply ... "

Probably even safer, for kids anyway, than bottled water, according to the Australian Dental Association, which found in a 2004 survey that the growth in use of unfluoridated bottled water by children was one of the main factors behind rising tooth decay.

Weening kids off soft drinks and fatty tuck shop foods is obviously the prime objective of the Nutrition Fund, and a praiseworthy goal it is.

But bribing the kids off their bad habits with expensive overpriced alternatives is just teaching them a new set of bad life skills.

Perhaps the answer is for the Government to pick up the tab for all school water with the proviso that drink vending machines of all sorts are banned, as is expensive frippery such as tap filters, from all participating schools.

Water is an expensive and vexatious cost to all schools, so such an offer would be very tempting.

It would lessen the need for the profits vending machines were installed to suck out of the kids in the first place. It would also guarantee healthier kids.

The only losers would be the snake oil merchants. Oh dear, how sad.