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This is only a side issue here, but more than one poster has raised it. Cheerios are not junk food. Their sugar content is lower than most cereals, for starters. They are made from whole grain oats. And their fat content is extremely low, almost negligible. Junk foods would be things like potato chips or hot dogs (horrendous fat content), white bread (nutritionally equivalent to sugar), regular soda (huge sugar fix without any other nutritional values). I don't claim to have listed all junk foods; I am just trying to give a representative sample. Nor am I claiming that Cheerios are the best thing we can eat, just that on the complete continuum they are not that bad.
So it was reading time with my 3 year old daughter the other night; she went rummaging through our large stack of kids books and found the "Cheerios Counting Book", a lovely piece of advertising that involves various animals playing with Cheerios cereal, encouraging your kids to count the Cheerios, 1-10.
So me (being myself) changed the story slightly. It went kinda like this:
daughter: "Daddy, what's that monkey doing?"
me: "He's trying to sell you Cheerios"
daughter:"What's that (seal) doing?"
me: "He's putting chemicals and insect parts in the cheerios."
daughter: "What's that puppy doing?"
me: "He's putting all the money in the bank so General Mills Executives can buy Mansions in Florida."
daughter: "what's the penguin doing ?"
me: "teaching you to always bug you parents to buy Cheerios when we go to the store, and to throw a giant fit on floor of the store if we don't."
daughter: "Daddy?"
me: "Yes?"
daughter: "I wanna read the story by myself now."
It's rough raising kids in this kind of world.
Protective services should remove that child ASAP.
This is only a side issue here, but more than one poster has raised it. Cheerios are not junk food. Their sugar content is lower than most cereals, for starters. They are made from whole grain oats. And their fat content is extremely low, almost negligible. Junk foods would be things like potato chips or hot dogs (horrendous fat content), white bread (nutritionally equivalent to sugar), regular soda (huge sugar fix without any other nutritional values). I don't claim to have listed all junk foods; I am just trying to give a representative sample. Nor am I claiming that Cheerios are the best thing we can eat, just that on the complete continuum they are not that bad.
Agree with that... Cheerios are relatively healthy, so I found it a bad example of junk food. I understand the concern about corporate advertising of junk food to the very young, but there are definitely more appropriate examples of this. To me, the worst is McDonald's ability to hook 2 year olds on "Happy" oversized, junk meals loaded with trans hydrogenated fats, sugars, sodium, chemicals, preservatives...
And how do they hook the kids? TOY BRIBERY! I mean what 2 year old doesn't want to be "Happy" by eating junk burgers and fries to collect ALL SIX of the latest, cheap plastic light-up Toy Story gadgets. And then 4-6 weeks later collecting ALL SIX of the latest, cheap plastic light-up MegaMind gadgets. And then 4-6 weeks later... Oh, you get the picture....
Wouldn't it be so kind of the giant evil corporation of McDonalds to start toy bribing 2 year olds to start whining for their healthy alternative apples, yogurt, or salads? But it is the corporation's job to make money and it the parent's job to make the best choices for their child.
And I agree 100% with this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathguy
I guess I just want to have the freedom to make my own decisions and just because some morons are too stupid or lazy to make good decisions with thier lives I'd prefer to keep my own options intact.
Its not the profit that makes them "evil", but rather the fact that they find so many ways to advertise their junk food to kids. Food advertising for kids should end, at this point its just promoting obesity.
How evil are the parent for giving into what the kids want and give them junk food? We, specially my wife, was very good in using one word, NO. So the people making profit may advertise but if grown adults do not have the intestinal fortitude to say no to their children, then they need to be more parents. Many parents nowadays want to be friends with their kids, do not want to hurt their feelings, etc. The easy route? Make the government enforce rules against companies in adversiting because parents do not know how to say NO. The next thing parent complain because the government interfere in their parenting choices, take care.
How evil are the parent for giving into what the kids want and give them junk food? We, specially my wife, was very good in using one word, NO. So the people making profit may advertise but if grown adults do not have the intestinal fortitude to say no to their children, then they need to be more parents. Many parents nowadays want to be friends with their kids, do not want to hurt their feelings, etc. The easy route? Make the government enforce rules against companies in adversiting because parents do not know how to say NO. The next thing parent complain because the government interfere in their parenting choices, take care.
This is so true, especially the bolded sentence... Many parents should say "NO" but instead they take the easy route and blame the schools, the teachers, the government, the corporations, the neighbors, the media, other kids, etc. for all of little Johnny's problems. And then they are always giving Johnny constant positive reinforcement/rewards for the most mundane, mediocre activities. I find this to be a uniquely American, problematic parenting style.
There have been some recent articles in the Wall Street Journal and on Nightline about this. There's a new book I want to read that compares this parenting style to the Asian parenting style (I think it's called "Tiger Mom" or something like that). My DH always tells me I parent like a tough Asian mom even though I'm an American WASP. I take it as a compliment.
Last edited by GoCUBS1; 01-27-2011 at 06:13 PM..
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This is so true, especially the bolded sentence... Many parents should say "NO" but instead they take the easy route and blame the schools, the teachers, the government, the corporations, the neighbors, the media, other kids, etc. for all of little Johnny's problems. And then they are always giving Johnny constant positive reinforcement/rewards for the most mundane, mediocre activities. I find this to be a uniquely American, problematic parenting style.
