Are Hamburgers the New Heroin for Kids?
Halloween is fast approaching, and frankly, the thought of all the candy my four-year-old and twin two-year-olds are going to haul into the house is making me break out in hives.
Don't get me wrong. I love Halloween. But the holiday is so focused on trick-or-treat fare that I dread the candy battles my daughter and I will have over her stash. In previous years, we were able to give away or throw out a significant amount of her loot. This year, she's four, and much more aware of what's going on around her.
I'm fine with my kids having the occasional Halloween treat. But I'm also aware that it's not healthy for their bodies or their teeth. Treats are generally saved for special occasions. We don't often have dessert. And while most of my large Italian family believes I am denying my children their childhood because cookies and cake don't follow every meal, I tend to believe I'm doing their little bodies a favor instead of a grave injustice.
Which brings me to this video, which is generating a lot of buzz on the interwebs this week.
This is an Australian PSA, created to address the childhood obesity epidemic.
Here's what I think:
It's dark and it's chilling. This PSA is not easy to watch. But I think that's exactly what its producers were aiming to accomplish.
It's flawed. The hamburger is not necessarily the enemy. The boy is eating a fast-food burger, complete with "sesame-seed bun," but as fellow Midtown member Christina LeBeau said in her post on this topic on Spoonfed, her awesome and Jamie Oliver-recognized blog that focuses on educating kids about food, "there’s a world of difference between a fast-food burger and a homemade pastured burger." I would have liked to see the boy eating a doughnut, candy bar, or other sugar-laden snack, since the addictive qualities of white sugar are on par with that of cocaine.
It achieved its goal because it made me think about the childhood obesity epidemic in this country, and exactly why it exists. The answers are myriad and complex and I don't pretend to know them all. But I do know this:
One third of children and teens are now overweight or obese.
One third.
The food served in school cafeterias is loaded with calories, fat, and processed beyond recognition in many cases. Schools nourish students' minds with knowledge, and yet serve them food so unhealthy it's making them ill. Kids turn on the tv, flip open a magazine, and walk into grocery stores, and are targeted by ads trying to sell them food that is literally killing them.
And there's also the widespread idea that junk food is somehow "owed" to kids. That to moderate treats is to zap all the fun out of childhood.
But this is a different world than the one in which we grew up. The health climate is much more perilous. Our food has been drastically changed for the worse by the addition of high-fructose corn syrup, trans fats, food dyes, hormones, and toxic chemicals. Kids and adults are more sedentary than they were even 10 years ago. And numerous studies have proven that junk food is highly addictive.
So yes, this video is disturbing and extreme, but I believe there is a connection between the negative effects of unhealthy food and those from using drugs.
What do you think about the video?