Often, there's so much shit in food that is marketed as ''diet'' or ''sugar-free'' that it's not even funny. Just because it has zero calories or uses a sugar substitute doesn't mean it's healthy.

I read that there is a certain amount of Potassium benzoate in Coke Zero and that cats have a significantly low tolerance against benzoic acid which means that they shouldn't drink too much Coke Zero (it is not healthy for them).

There's still a Coke vending machine and even a coffee machine in my college, so I'm okay. To be serious, though, it doesn't restrict any basic rights as far as I'm concerned. You can drink or eat whatever, you won't go to jail if caught with an opened bottle of coke, it's just that school cafes aren't allowed to sell it.

The UK is pushing for a simmilar ban on this sort of sweet selling, however, they're going to need to be a little bit more on the ball as I know of at least one school in my area that has a near perminant Burger Van parked just beside it and an Ice Cream van that does very nice business during Recess and Lunchtime (thank you very much).

Firther Education doesn't need this (and I say the next word in a contextual light) nonsence however, I'd imagine by the time your College/Univertisty bound you'd be in full notion what you'd be doing to your body anyway.

Granted that this says that only Coke and similar drinks were banned, but this also is leading to many districts near where I live banning all sugary things. The school this year is having huge problems because they can no longer sell candy for fund raising, as that has been banned by the district, and any student doing so could get expelled. Personally, I have nothing against soft drinks being banned, but only so long as it is only soft drinks.

At my school, PE was mandatory in freshman year, and then you had to take only another half year afterwards (I took mine in the summer, which means I'm a pretty dumbfuck because who wants to run around outside when it's 110, but still).

Since the gym didn't have A/C, and since it was so hot outside, some days we just sat outside and played poker. A++.

Personally I think this is a good thing. If Coke and Pepsi didn't want these kinds of things happen then maybe they could try making some foods and drinks that don't cause laboratory rats to grow large prostate tumors (exaggerating...). Just take a moment and look up Aspartame and all the supposed information that goes along with how horribly unhealthy it is for us and that these companies have been pimpin it for years. Granted, plenty of sources will say its fine but there are also sources that say Tobacco use is fine too.

The schools don't really have to sell anything unless the people really push for them to. On the same note, would you want kids eating McDonald's food everyday? They aren't adults and probably aren't making the most informed decisions as to what they are putting in their bodies...

Well, they are making those new sodas with Splenda in them, but whatever.

Also, all of those problems for people with aspartame happen because they're allergic to it. That's why it has the "phenylketonuronics: contains phenylalanine" warning. Same reason why a snickers bar has a sign on it that says "Warning: contains peanuts." And the lab rats that got tumors were exposed to something like the sweetener in five hundred gallons worth of soda every day.

True but…the problem is we really don’t know what the long term effects of the stuff is more importantly we don’t know what the long term effect of this plus all the other artificial junk in our diet is. One of my dietetic professors has told us she much rather have her kids drink regular coke because she already knows the long term effects of sugar and caffeine aspartame she not so sure of. Don’t get me wrong Diet drinks do have their place: diabetics for example as a stepping stone, for those that simply won’t kick the cola habit etc. I'm just saying getting kids to dirk diet soda should be a compromise when all-else, fails never a goal. In this case I do think having diet coke instead of the regular kind is a good first but it’s too small of a step for me to really get happy about. At such a young age my focus would be and them not getting hooked on cola diet or other wise to begin with this involves removing all or better yet a good nutrition education program involving parent’s teachers, food staff etc.

And the school has the right to refuse to allow vending machines in their in the first place, the biggest problem with this is definitely money. Schools simply don’t want to give up the money they get from vending machines, cola companies company to get exclusive poring rights, the solution in these case is to try more nutrition education or instead suggest a mandatory ratio between healthy and un healthy snacks. The other problem is that some parents do believe that their kids have a right to drink soda in school which I find completely stupid because you don’t have any such right and secondly if you want your kid to have cola that badly just pack it for him in his lunch box it’s cheaper that way to.

Well, one of the problems with not letting the kid have the choice when they're younger is they might not learn the kind of self control that'll be more important when they're older. How many people do you know whose diets have gone completely to crap since they went to college since they never had any choice about anything to eat when they were younger, so now they just go for whatever they think feels good at the time?