East Coast School District Switches to HINT Essence Water

20/09/06 With childhood obesity on the rise, back to school presents an ongoing challenge for moms who have only so much control over their children's food and beverage choices outside the home.

Although school lunches and nutrition curricula have improved, there's still the issue of vending machines offering sugar-laden beverages (fruit juices and teas) and snacks disguised as healthy by manufacturers; not to mention lunch swaps, after school play dates accompanied by inevitable snacking, or a hungry or thirsty moment culminating in the first thing kids can get their hands on -- generally chocolate, chips, soda and other substandard choices.

Fortunately, now there's HINT Essence Water, a purely refreshing water lightly infused with extraordinary natural flavors and nothing else: no sugar, sweeteners, preservatives or anything artificial.

In Massapequa, New York, school district lunch director Kathleen Kulbaba, RD, has phased in HINT among her school's beverage offerings, replacing the flavored iced teas that preceded them. "Teaching kids the importance of proper nutrition is essential, but providing them with the means by which to make healthy choices is the on-going challenge," says Kulbaba. "HINT is a great, delicious first step towards achieving our goals."

Conceived by a San Francisco mother-of-four who was seeking something simple and calorie-free to give her own family, Kara Goldin developed HINT in response to the countless juice and soda offerings aligning supermarket shelves and the eruption of new beverages competing on the basis of dubious functional claims (gives you energy, calms you down, makes you smarter, protects you from disease.)

HINT comes in eight delicious flavors in a kid-friendly size that makes it perfect for packing in any lunchbox, brown bag or backpack. And because it tastes so good, it's the ideal post-practice or workout beverage for people of all ages.