BLOG 15

“Mom, Dad, Buy the Broccoli”

           In the article “Mom, Dad, Buy the Broccoli” from The New York Times the author explains that in recent years the companies that were selling junk food to children are “out of control” that even the food industry were alert. A few companies came up with the idea to reduce the advertisement of unhealthy food and replace them with the healthier once. They want to accomplish it by removing cartoon characters from unhealthy foods and stop advertising their products in elementary schools.

The author reports that we should not promote unhealthy food to young children. I believe most of us would agree with this statement because advertisements can influence children to buy junk food especially when it is associates with positive feeling. In addition, eating this kind of food may lead to serious health problems.

The food that contains a lot of sugar, salt and fats is almost in every school. Our children can buy them from vending machines and they don’t help in keeping our youth in shape. Children spend most of their time in school and it is very likely that they are going to buy something to eat. Since there is no healthy food they will end up with chocolate bars or soda. This food can be really addicting and sometimes kids would starve if they would not eat them. It is a very good idea to remove those machines from schools or at least replace them with healthier options in them.

I remember when I was young, candies and chocolate were for special occasions and I could eat them once a week. Now times have changed and children like my cousin who is 12 years old eat them every day. A few weeks ago I watched a good movie about what our young generation knows about eating healthy. Jamie Olivier came into a kindergarten classroom and showed a few fruits and vegetables to the students. The outcome was that none of them could tell the difference between the vegetables. Many knew what ketchup was and how it tasted but no one knew that it comes from tomatoes and were shocked when they found out. Since children don’t have enough knowledge they can’t distinguish the difference between healthy and unfit foods. As a result, the obesity rates are growing among the youth instead of the adults and are developing more life treating diseases such as diabetes.

We can always blame the companies that make these unfit foods but at the same time we are not teaching our children any better. Since they are exposed to these kinds of foods everyday they would tend to eat more of the junk food instead of fruits and vegetables. If children would help cook meals with their parents then their minds would be more focused on healthy instead of unhealthy foods.