In England, there's a new program to try and make junk food less appealing. You might want to heed those words, because this can get a little gross. And it's not really clear how or if it will work.
The Food4Thought campaign is aimed at children, particularly 11-12 years old. The British Heart Foundation (BHF) created posters showing the common ingredients in many burgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets in the hope of shocking youngsters into improving their diet.
The images are of hamburger buns filled with gristle and bones, and they are appearing across that country to get children to think about the food they eat. The images of gristle, bone and connective tissue are partly covered by a "censored" stamp - but the full ingredients can be seen on the charity's Web site.
The campaign came out of results from a BHF survey, where 36 percent of youngsters aged 8-14 could not correctly identify the main ingredient of chips (fries) as potato. Nearly 9 percent of the children questioned thought chips were made of oil, with other suggesting eggs, flour and apples. About 37 percent also failed to identify that cheese was mostly made of milk.
"It sends a shiver down my spine to discover that so many children don't even know what chips are made of," said BHF director general Peter Hollins. "Kids have lost touch with even the most basic foods and no longer understand what they are eating. Banning foods or telling children not to eat them is not enough - we must engage children in understanding why certain foods are less healthy than others, and encourage them to become interested in what's on their plate."
I remember growing up justifying French fries by telling my mother, "See I'm eating vegetables. A potato is a vegetable." And after 1981, ketchup became a vegetable, too (thanks to Reagan). How horrible it is that British kids today aren't even able to correctly justify their chip consumption.
Having seen the pictures (look at your own risk), I don't see the correlation between the campaign and the goal. If kids don't know potatoes are chips and cheese is milk, they need trips to the farm. American kids, too, don't associate hamburgers with cows or chicken nuggets with Foghorn Leghorn. Educate and be straight forward. Give them the truth and make it fun; grossing them out just grosses them without a message.
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