The "health advice" I received in school was clearly geared towards the promotion of high carbohydrate foods and sugars while villainizing macronutrients like dietary fat and cholesterol. Every school I attended sold processed snack foods and sugary drinks. My elementary school sold cinnamon rolls floating in a bath of glaze, and they were cheap. Periods of outdoor activity were no more than half an hour, and we were discouraged from running because it was "dangerous". We were never taught how to interpret the Nutrition Facts on food labels, or about net carbs, the insulin response, etc. As I mentioned in a recent thread about skipping breakfast, we actually had industry shills come in and promote breakfast as the "most important meal of the day" while encouraging us to eat plenty of fruits and "slow carbs". Nobody ever told me that, once you gain fat, the fat swells and shrinks but doesn't go away and results in saggy skin if you lose a lot of weight. In fact, consequences to anything were rarely taught, except when it came to passing tests. This was Californian education in a wealthy town.
Education isn't a panacea, but in it's current form, it's a joke. Labels will cause some people to take sugar more seriously, yet we could be doing so much more by admitting that we've failed children for generations. Year after year, it's excuses from politicians, school boards, and parents. Health warnings on food is just duct tape.
I've been out of the public education system for 12 years, so maybe things have vastly improved since then? Someone please tell me so. When I bring this up either on HN or offline, my argument is ridiculed for being reductive, and yet nobody denies that the education system badly needs improvement or that education plays a role in the development of young minds.
I want people to be warned about the dangers of sugar intake, but if we're not going to give people the tools to help themselves in the first place, then these warnings serve to infantilize the public for the sake of cost savings.