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| Time to "power up" with cereal crack! |
Lately I've been buying cereal when it's on sale, because I'm on a tight budget. I haven't eaten it regularly for many, many years, not even during my broke college days, because it was way more expensive than other simple foods, like eggs, bread, cheese, butter, and milk.
But recently I've been buying a small box when it's on sale for $1.99, and it contains ingredients I can easily pronounce. So, I've been sitting at a table in the morning, looking at a box decorated for kid's, while I eat from a bowl filled with milk and cereal, just like in childhood.
Of course I noticed right away the wild colors, designs, and graphics. It's hard not to, and that's the point. Art for children, as it relates to impulse buys in a grocery store by the continued, tearful haranguing at a harried parent by an impatient, cranky toddler, has to be as instantly addictive as its' highly sugared contents. Marketing to children despite their best interests is a hard dance at that, too.
Cigarette manufacturers learned the hard way: Joe Camel was rendered too kid-friendly, as was the brightly colored promotional material posted child high at stores, to catch their lowered eye heights and attention spans. I recently interacted with a very young couple's child, and as I watched her bounce frenetically from thing to another without absorbing any of it, I knew her diet was part of the problem.
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| This is your kids' brain on legal drugs. Enjoy! |
And so it was: a few days later, another neighbor, who acts as a sometimes surrogate parent and free babysitter, came over to tell me that the little girl was being weaned off sugar because of her hyperactivity, which was obvious to observe. She was running at full, frenetic speed well after 9:30 p.m. at night, a time period when I would have been so sleepy as a kid, I would not have been able to keep my eyes open, even if I wanted to. She was that wound up.
We know now that the highly processed and refined sugars add to an enormous list of health problems for people, but here's the missing part of the puzzle that's more hidden and actively suppressed by food and beverage companies through their lobbyists in Washington, the ones who cater to, and pay off, FDA officials: a growing link between certain foods and their negative impact upon our brains, (which are part of our bodies), and if not addressed quickly, develop into long-term (and incurable) mental illness. That hyperactive douche bag sales rep who pounds coffee crack all day from the nearest chain store, regularly snapping out inappropriately at meetings and passive-aggressively via email? He was the crazy kid next door who tried to bite you on the arm all the time, now grown up and working in your office. Stay safe.
