To the editor:

I was delighted to read that school districts are finally reducing access to sugary treats in our schools. Then I kept on reading: no birthday party treats, no occasional snack for celebration. This is just another example of how health freaks take a good idea and turn it into a fascist agenda.

We shouldn’t allow vending companies and food-service companies to push junk food onto our kids, and it is obvious that cafeteria sweets represent some of the most unhealthy food on the planet. Daily intake of sweets is harmful. Occasional enjoyment is the right way to eat them. Puritanical denial of all sweets is fanatical.

Kaylie Price is right on target when she points out how terrible for you and horribly tasting diet soda is, and yet, because the no-sweets policy is not based in reality, but in fanaticism, snacks are being offered as alternatives that are worse than the original.

And why would Gatorade be considered any less bad? Has Bruce Passman ever read the ingredients on a bottle? I happen to have one right here: “Water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup :” Need I go on? If this policy gets adopted we can all consider it a milestone on our way to educating the humanity and common sense out of our children.

T. Ryan O’Leary,

Lawrence