Children And Consumption
This is a photo taken by a kid. I think it captures that look they get
I don’t have kids, but I’m a decent baby-sitter. Lately the kids have been OK to take out without actively trying to kill themselves. However, it seems like society is trying to kill them, albeit slowly. Every thing they sell to kids seems to be bad. Coke, pizza, ice cream, toy guns. I actually find it a bit shocking the stuff we push on children from a young age.
Ask any kid where they want to go, for example, and they’ll probably say McDonald’s. The food there has little nutritional value and may actually be counter-nutritional. Kids also want Coke, but the people I know who’ve been drinking a lot of Coke start getting health problems in their twenties and end up peeing blood as adults.
If you watch kids’ TV, as well, the stuff that’s marketed is candies, sugary drinks, chips – none of which have any particular nutritional value. If you go out they ask for these things, like pizza and then you end up eating fried cheese and accumulating a ton of garbage. Pizza boxes, napkins, flyers, plastic bottles, it’s basically the body weight of the child in waste.
I actually find it hard to go anywhere that isn’t full of bad things. They sell realistic toy guns in the park. Excel World is full of junk food. Other places are full of stuff to buy so kids get used to consumerism as a sort of entertainment.
Alternative
When I was a kid we used to look for crawdads in the Scioto River, have bike races around the apartments, go sledding and stuff. That was fun. On birthdays you’d go to Chuck E. Cheese or Roller Skates Of America or something. That was fun, exploring and stuff. There’s nothing to eat of course. We once tried to survive in the woods and lasted about half an hour. We saw squirrels but killing them was beyond our ken. So I still like pizza.
I just wonder if there’s anywhere to take kids in Colombo that’s outside. And if it’s possible to feed them, like, fruit and vegetables and water without them being disappointed.
You COULD just live outside colombo? Plenty of things to do while growing up that doesn’t involve buying. Add to that the easily available fruit and stuff from the back yard. Yeah, I grew up hardcore, man :p
I grew up with sugary Elephant House drinks, although not quite so much of the other stuff. Parents need to understand proper nutrition and bring up their children accordingly.
Human’s have a strong positive response to sugar and once that and other junk food is introduced it becomes hard to get rid of until the person is old enough to understand the health problems and change their habits.
I grew out of it eventually.
Maybe this is just a problem of the Colombo crowd. In the outstations kids still eat three wholesome meals a day (maybe less!) without junk food, draw water from a fresh ground well, and spend their time playing outdoors with their friends instead of sitting in front of a TV.
good thoughts.. Its parents who should educated about this, as they should not buy every thing child demanding..
Just go into a village kade anywhere and see how many sweets with and without wrappings are in Jars in front just to entice the kids. Sadly I see kids demanding them from parents and wrappings littering the area outside the kade. This selection increases and now the chewing gums also. I also have a kade that sells the good stuff (papaya, banana, orange, mango etc.) but the bad stuff seems to have a greater demand, and cheaper on a unit basis too, as a worthless sweet is Rs 5 and a Banana is 10!
There are no trash cans outside kades, just piles of debri after the morning sweep, both biodegradable organic matter and the non-biodegradable in the same heap but then that is a subject for another time! sorry
Hi Indi, i have a son wh0 is 2 1/2… i never give him fizzy drinks even when we go out. Plus, at home, consciously i give him healthy foods and now he’s used to eating more traditional foods like mallum and the like. It all depends how you bring up your children… he loves fresh juices and doesnt even miss the junk food.. occasionally, we spoil him by giving him an ice cream or some fries but it is very rare..
Come on Indi.. Indulge those kids. My kids have boring healthy food at home. I am sure it’s the same with the kids you take out. It’s ok for kids to have junk food occasionally. Anyway it’s very easy to brainwash the kids and scare them into eating healthy food. When they are older they want to look good so are careful with their diet. Believe me. I am a mother of two teenage girls, one is a vegetarian.