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Speaker 1: A parent in Northland has drawn media attention to teachers

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Speaker 1: giving out chocolates and lollies to kids. This mother says

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Speaker 1: that her son's first school gave out lollies to kids

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Speaker 1: who picked up litter, and his current school gives chocolate

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Speaker 1: and sweets as prizes, and the Ministry of Health guidelines

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Speaker 1: say this should not happen at schools. Boyd Swinburne is

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Speaker 1: the professor of Population, Nutrition and Global Health at the

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Speaker 1: University of Auckland who's been on the show many times

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Speaker 1: and he's back with us.

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Speaker 2: Hello Boyd, Hello Heather.

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Speaker 1: Okay, whose side are you on? Yeah? Are you on

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Speaker 1: the side of the kids who just want the sweets

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Speaker 1: or the Ministry of Health and the mother.

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Speaker 2: Well, I totally sympathize with the teacher's position and trying

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Speaker 2: to manage kids. And you know, in my day, they

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Speaker 2: tried to manage us by caning us. So thankfully we've

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Speaker 2: got away from that kind of negative reinforcement and they're

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Speaker 2: trying positive reinforcement. And yet sweets and lollies are easy,

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Speaker 2: cheap ways to do that and that kids respond to it.

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Speaker 2: But I don't think our imagination should be limited to that,

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Speaker 2: and they probably are a better way of doing it

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Speaker 2: to like what stickers kids teeth stickers and points and

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Speaker 2: other sort of rewards. There's lots of things that kids

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Speaker 2: respond to rather than confectionery, like.

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Speaker 1: What asking for a friend who's got a four year

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Speaker 1: old hair? Because I mean, because, I mean, look, I

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Speaker 1: know that we should be careful about teeth, and I

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Speaker 1: know that we should be doing but we're also human

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Speaker 1: beings who need to just have a bit of a

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Speaker 1: good time sometimes. Are we just being way too boring here? Kids?

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you could say, you can say that, but

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Speaker 2: actually schools can find other ways. I'm not a school teacher,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, but plenty of schools have done. Plenty

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Speaker 2: of schools do say that we're providing the best environment

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Speaker 2: for kids, we're being role model, institutional role models, and

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Speaker 2: they will find ways to do it. And you know,

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Speaker 2: I think that when over time, as healthy eating hopefully

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Speaker 2: gets more traction in schools like it is with the

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Speaker 2: healthy school lunches and so on, that it'll be seen

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Speaker 2: as a bit of an anathema to have to give

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Speaker 2: out lollies. And also you want to match what the

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Speaker 2: school does with what the school teaches in the curriculum.

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Speaker 2: So if they're teaching all the stuff about healthy eating

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Speaker 2: and then they go around and do that, it doesn't

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Speaker 2: really resonate, does it. So I think in time a

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Speaker 2: little bit like you know, caning kids is now really

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Speaker 2: seen as not the thing you do, and it's been

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Speaker 2: kind of outlawed in schooled. You know, maybe in ten

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Speaker 2: years time or fifteen years time, we might find that

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Speaker 2: there it isn't such a widespread pack practice and lots

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Speaker 2: of schools have found other ways to reward kids.

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Speaker 1: All right, he thank you, Boyd, I really appreciate you.

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Speaker 1: I'm Boyd Swinburn, Professor of Population, Nutrition and Global Health

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Speaker 1: at the University of Auckland.

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Speaker 2: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 2: the podcast on iHeartRadio