Good grief!
Mar. 25th, 2010 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahbyrddI've become that person.
There's a discussion over on www.bfdblog.com about a proposed ban on Happy Meal toys in one California county:
"A child’s “Happy Meal” may soon be a little less happy in Santa Clara County, where a local official wants to prevent fast-food restaurants from giving away inexpensive toys with kids’ orders. County supervisor Ken Yeager plans to ask his colleagues today to order up a law regulating when fast-food outlets can serve toy cars, action figures and other freebies as part of their children’s’ menus. Yeager says the toys entice young customers to load up on high-calorie fare and may contribute to childhood obesity."
They're chopping down trees and not seeing the forest. The real issue here is advertising to children. Come here my pretty, and I'll give you a toy if you eat this processed food that's been designed to be highly craveable, and by the time you're an adult you'll have a habit (near addiction) formed in childhood that will be a bitch to kick. CACKLECACKLECACKLE. How many times were you swayed as a child to choose a particular cereal because of the toy surprise?
Advertising to children works:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/business/media/15kids.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1269529202-aBP7ThplZ/v9P0KmsP9+GA
"They are “powerful and incredibly insidious,” said Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “The goal is to incorporate a brand into a child’s identity.”
Collect 3 proofs of purchase from Ovaltine and send them in for a decoder ring and you too can be in Orphan Annie's Detective Squad! And it's not just about getting a kid to drink your specific product. It's about teaching a kid to be a consumer, to want a thing because it's part of a set of things "COLLECT THEM ALL".
I'm rambling and ranting. But I guess my point is, hell yes, get rid of the plastic toys, but also let's stop letting advertisers tell kids (so that's it's ingrained by adulthood) that you have to have X, Y or Z to be cool and fit in, to equate stuff with self-worth. Is it apples and oranges? I don't think so. So there you have it. Happy meals caused the financial crisis.
There's a discussion over on www.bfdblog.com about a proposed ban on Happy Meal toys in one California county:
"A child’s “Happy Meal” may soon be a little less happy in Santa Clara County, where a local official wants to prevent fast-food restaurants from giving away inexpensive toys with kids’ orders. County supervisor Ken Yeager plans to ask his colleagues today to order up a law regulating when fast-food outlets can serve toy cars, action figures and other freebies as part of their children’s’ menus. Yeager says the toys entice young customers to load up on high-calorie fare and may contribute to childhood obesity."
They're chopping down trees and not seeing the forest. The real issue here is advertising to children. Come here my pretty, and I'll give you a toy if you eat this processed food that's been designed to be highly craveable, and by the time you're an adult you'll have a habit (near addiction) formed in childhood that will be a bitch to kick. CACKLECACKLECACKLE. How many times were you swayed as a child to choose a particular cereal because of the toy surprise?
Advertising to children works:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/business/media/15kids.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1269529202-aBP7ThplZ/v9P0KmsP9+GA
"They are “powerful and incredibly insidious,” said Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “The goal is to incorporate a brand into a child’s identity.”
Collect 3 proofs of purchase from Ovaltine and send them in for a decoder ring and you too can be in Orphan Annie's Detective Squad! And it's not just about getting a kid to drink your specific product. It's about teaching a kid to be a consumer, to want a thing because it's part of a set of things "COLLECT THEM ALL".
I'm rambling and ranting. But I guess my point is, hell yes, get rid of the plastic toys, but also let's stop letting advertisers tell kids (so that's it's ingrained by adulthood) that you have to have X, Y or Z to be cool and fit in, to equate stuff with self-worth. Is it apples and oranges? I don't think so. So there you have it. Happy meals caused the financial crisis.
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 04:11 pm (UTC)We go to McD's once or twice a month. The kids get a hamburger, apple slices, milk, and a toy. Then the kids play in the hamster trail structure for half an hour or more. All together, it's not a bad interlude. For the same price, another parent could choose a hamburger, french fries, sugared soda, and *not* play in the habitrail.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 06:07 pm (UTC)That said, I think there's a lot of parental responsibility here, as well. When the commercial thing started popping up, I used it as teachable moments. Casey, my apprentice, actually has Sham-Wows and he (or maybe it was Sue, his wife) got to show Laura how they weren't even close to being as exciting as advertised.
Now, I'd say that she has a firm grasp of what is real and what is not real when it comes to commercials.
I like the toys in Happy Meals. While we don't allow her to eat there often, when we do allow it, the toy gives the trip an air of being a special treat that we allow ourselves to occasionally have. I'm hoping that by not preventing her from eating there entirely we skip over the idea that it's a forbidden fruit that she allow herself to heavily indulge in when she gets older and has more control over her life. I know I spent years of my young adulthood eating nothing but fast food and sugar cereal because we weren't allowed to have it as children.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 08:33 pm (UTC)Re: good and bad food
Date: 2010-03-25 09:11 pm (UTC)What I'm talking about is the Value judgement that we place on food in this country. We assign virtue to foods and by extension people eating them: "I was good today, so I can be bad later....or I was BAD today so I have to be good tonight."
Salad = good
Cookie = bad
Except really ... Salads can be very fatty and caloric depending upon how you dress them up. A cookie or two can be a perfectly nutrious snack. Food is food, it is neither good nor bad, nor does eating cheesecake for breakfast once in a blue moon make you a bad person ... it might give you a headache a few hours later, but not put you on the FBI's most wanted list. But we judge other people and ourselves by what we eat. That's what I wish I hadn't gotten from my mother.
I think your tactic of distinguishing between things that are nutrious and things that aren't but allowing both in a balanced way is very sensible. Here's a question ... is the bean able to identify when she's having a sugar crash, and does she relate that crappy cranky feeling to what she's eaten a few hours ago?
Re: good and bad food
Date: 2010-03-25 09:29 pm (UTC)As far as I can recall, I did not get sugar crashes until late in my teens. Lord knows I had plenty of opportunity, though! (I also didn't find caffeine to be a problem keeping me awake at night until after I was 30.)
Re: good and bad food
Date: 2010-03-25 09:35 pm (UTC)Re: good and bad food
Date: 2010-03-26 01:48 pm (UTC)Re: good and bad food
Date: 2010-03-26 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 09:30 pm (UTC)However, I have to admit to using the words good and bad in relation to food and not always the full phrase "good for you" and "bad for you". I think I'll start using the words healthy and unhealthy instead because I like what you're saying. And I think a few discussions about moderation and its importance when it comes to diet will be in our future now that she's 8 and can grasp more complicated concepts.
Thanks for giving me food for thought. (lolpun)