I was the least popular kid during lunchtime in elementary school; no one ever wanted to trade a Fruit-by-the-Foot for my celery and grapes. When I asked my mom to pack “good” lunches like the other moms, she refused. I continued to make it clear and very well heard that I did not want everything in my lunch box to either be a vegetable, fruit, or strut the label “organic.”
My sister, Jessica, and I found the opportunity to get what we wanted during the monthly trip to Acme (the conventional grocery store in our neighborhood). There was a stark contrast between Acme and the cooperative market we visited daily, Weaver’s Way. The Acme clearly depicted Pollan’s description of American grocery stores: a place where the abundance of choice makes it nearly impossible to make good food decisions. As a kid, this dilemma was by no means related to making a good food decision. What it came down to was, did we want Frosted Flakes (with a toy included) or Cinderella themed Lucky Charms? Ultimately, this was determined by which marketer was best able to capture our interest while in the grocery store.
After much practice, Jessica and I had manufactured a strategic plan to distract our mom from the packaged, sugar-dense item we snuck on the belt, without her or the cashier becoming suspicious. Once we got home, one of us would rummage through the bag (with urgency) to find the contraband, and hide it in one of our rooms.
Schlosser, in Fast Food Nation, highlighted the influence marketing has on children. The direct and intentional effort marketers make to engage and entice kids, is the basis for the development of bad eating and nutrition in children. I am grateful for my parents conscious and persistent effort to resist the pull from me and food corporations, however the regular diet of many people reflects the strong influence of the food industry to influence the choices in the American shopping cart.
I am very impressed by the commitment of my roommate, Karen, and her internship site, CentroNía to combat this force. The school is unique in that they promote healthy eating at a young age, by providing healthy, free lunches for young children, not allowing any fast-food to enter the school, and hosting community cooking workshops. Their efforts are paying off.
It is encouraging to see the growth and efforts that schools, among other organizations, are making to ensure kids eat healthy. Food’s role as a determinant of school performance, behavior, and long-term health (to name a few) is being consistently brought to light, in a concerted effort to counteract a fast, packaged, and passive food culture.
I had such fun reading your very enjoyable personal post. I can so relate to the school playground food trade, but from a different perspective. I was the kid who came to school with my lunchbox filled with gushers, fruit rollups, and lunchables (the kind with plastic wrapped pizzas or gooey neon yellow nacho cheese.) Looking back I cannot believe I actually ate that stuff. Not only did I think they tasted sweet, but I had the luxury of being able to trade the packaged food for whatever I wanted: more sugary sweets. It’s such a dangerous game. The bad food was the “fun food” and its so easy to get addicted to the sugar packed processed junk. Even now I still feel the fast food industry’s pull on me. When reminiscing about childhood memories, it’s hard not to long for the Dairy Queen oreo blizzards of sweltering summer days or the packages of Swedish Fish I hoarded at sleep-a-way camp.
Jean —
I had a very similar experience growing up. My mom was obsessed with anything “organic,” and one of my friends would always make fun of me when we got snacks at the grocery store after school saying “are you going to buy organic oreos and organic cheetos?!” The only time my mom would let my brothers and I break the food rules was on vacation. We would get to have cocoa puffs for breakfast and it was the greatest thing ever! I loved the colorful box and the games on the back almost as much as the delicious (fake) chocolate taste.
It is crazy how much advertising impacts children’s food preferences. I am part of a program called Growing Change at Dartmouth, through which I go to a local elementary school once a week and teach kids about nutrition and gardening. One of our lessons (after the one about reading food labels) is about advertising. We ask kids to describe the difference between, for example, a Trix cereal box, and an apple on the produce shelf. Then we ask them to create their own advertisement for the apples that will make them as appealing as the Trix. They always write things like “Toy Inside!” I think it’s so interesting to watch how kids react to the lesson. I wonder if grocery stores will start advertising the healthier foods targeting kids in some way…
Jeanne, I so enjoyed your account of how your sister and you tried to subvert the healthy-food approach of your mother. It was very funny, and very recognizable. My mother was always trying to get me to eat whole-grain bread, yogurt, squash, and other abominations, and I was outraged by the very idea when I was a boy. Have you ever eaten Wonder Bread? In the 50s it was advertised everywhere, and was my ideal bread. Processed to the Nth degree, as pale as paper, and immediately dissolving in your mouth or even when just touched by mayonaise or mustard. Now I bake all our bread and here you are enrolling in a course on food systems. So our mothers both conquered in their long campaigns!