Food for Thought Thursday - Are Children the Victims of our Vices?

If your toddler's car seat was recalled, would you still use it? Or would you let them ride with no car seat at all? Most likely, you'd return the car seat and conduct some research to find a safer model.

Most parents wouldn't even consider letting their young children ride in a car without a car seat or play in the middle of a busy street. Everyone knows it just isn't safe. In my opinion, food is no less of a safety issue. For some reason, however, our culture doesn't see it this way, helped out no doubt by the persuasive marketing of junk food manufacturers.
 
Recently, I ran across this interesting article entitled Are Children the Victims of our Vices? It outlines a number of ways that our children's nutritional choices are affected by our own bad habits. I mean, who hasn't ever let their kids eat something less than healthy because it occupied them for a little while - or because we wanted some ourselves? But making those moments a lifestyle - rather than rare occurrences - certainly has long-term repercussions.

Regardless of whether the blame falls on parents, food manufacturer or our culture, there's only one group who can fix it - parents . . . because it's our children who will be affected if we don't.