Too Much Sugar, and the Brain Crashes

Sweets are easy to love. Candy, a hand-shaken drink on the way home, something small after school — nobody has to be talked into any of it. On Tuesday, September 8, the first to fourth grades at Qiaotou filled the audiovisual room to find out what happens next, at a nutrition talk with a title that made them laugh before it made them think: 糖糖危機　腦力當機 — Sugar Crisis, Brain Crash.

甜的東西很難不喜歡。糖果、回家路上的手搖飲、放學後的小點心——根本不需要人家勸。9 月 8 日（二）上午，橋頭的一到四年級坐滿視聽教室，來看看吃進太多糖以後會發生什麼事。講座的名字讓孩子先笑出來，再開始思考：「糖糖危機　腦力當機」。

The speaker was Lin Mei-chen, a dietitian from the school’s lunch provider. She started with the sweet things the children already know by heart, then turned to what comes after them: tooth decay, weight gain, moods that swing, skin that ages early — and, in the afternoon, a brain that finds concentrating harder than it should.

主講的是午餐公司的林美珍營養師。她從孩子早就熟到不能再熟的甜食講起，接著談後面跟著來的事：蛀牙、變胖、情緒起伏、皮膚提早老化——還有到了下午，那顆怎麼樣都專心不起來的腦袋。

The most useful part of the morning fits on one hand. For hand-shaken drinks: one “no” — no toppings, choose unsweetened; two “less” — less often, and a smaller cup; three “avoid” — avoid acidic drinks. The children also practiced turning a bottle around and reading its nutrition label, because sugar likes to hide there under names that do not look like sugar at all. And the drink that came out best in the end was the plainest one on the slide: water.

最實用的部分，一隻手就數得完。手搖飲料的三句口訣是「1 不 2 減 3 避免」：1 不——不加料、選無糖；2 減——減少頻率及飲料量；3 避免——避免酸類飲料。孩子也練習把瓶子轉過來看營養標示，因為糖很會躲，常常換一個看起來完全不像糖的名字。而投影片上評價最高的那一杯，其實是最樸素的那一杯：白開水。

Hands went up all over the room, and stayed up. At the end Principal Chen Chun-wen presented a certificate of thanks to the dietitian, and the children went back to class with the line the whole morning had been building toward: less sugar, more health. Eat smart, and grow well.

台下的手舉得又快又高，而且一直沒放下。講座最後由陳俊文校長頒發感謝狀給營養師，孩子則帶著整個早上都在鋪陳的那句話回教室：少一點糖，多一點健康！讓我們一起「聰明吃、健康成長」。