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The study found
that after five days having the food put before them to look at
but not touch, the children actually wanted it MORE than the junk
food they were allowed to eat.
Wow! What a
shock!
Once the junk
food industry study was published, food industry-funded "science"
groups with important-sounding names, like "The American Counsel
for Science and Health" (ACSH), began using this study to conclude
that the "food police" are wrong to deny junk food to their kids.
Parents must in essence cede control of their children's desires
to their children, they argued to any news organization that might
print a story, otherwise parents risk creating more desire
on the part of the children for the unhealthful foods, and the kids
will only end up eating more junk, not less...!
The junk food
industry "scientists" recommendation, in other words?
Let them eat
twinkies!
Of course, no
educational information was provided to the children as part of
the study, that eating the food in question might compromise their
health or was otherwise undesirable. That might have messed up the study results the researchers were after.
Obviously, the
food-industry researchers who set up the study knew enough about
human nature and children's curiosity to set it up to get this apparent
"result." It doesn't take a study to know that small kids
will take a chair and climb up onto a cabinet and generally do anything
in their power to get at something Mommy and Daddy told them they
couldn't have.
It's also pretty
obvious researchers would get the same results if they had used
a toy, a drug or a weapon. Had the researchers found that children's
interest in toys, drugs or weapons increased when taunted in this
same way, would their advice be "not to restrict" chidren's
access to these items too?
And yet this
is the kind of schlock "research" the food industry supports
in order to promote junk food sales, and to try to blunt the negative
sales impact of the many reputable studies showing nutritional problems
of eating too much junk food.
(Incidentally,
you know you are reading a food-industry funded article when you
read terms like "food police" -- a code work used by industry
hacks to disparage good parenting. This is the term used by pro-industry
organizations with names like "National Center for Public Policy
Analysis," "Citizens for the Integrity of Science,"
(an "organization" run by tobacco & chemical industry-funded Steven
Milloy of "Junkscience.com"); "Competitive Enterprise Institute"
and "Center for Global Food Issues," to name a few of the worst.)
The most appropriate
way to help adults get their kids to eat a healthy diet would be
for researchers to look at parents who have succeeded in doing so.
Researchers
would find, to begin with, that such parents don't play mind games
on their children, but rather they don't give the junk food to their
children to start with; they don't create an addiction to bad food
at an early age, and they keep an eye on their children's nutritional
development so that the kids don't have ready, unlimited access
to junky foods.
Effective parents
also begin to educate their children early about healthy and unhealthy
foods. Children naturally want to be healthy, strong and successful.
If you teach a child very early that smoking cigarettes is a disgusting
addiction that causes death and disease, most will never want to
smoke.
The same is
true with dietary habits, which is why it's so important to regain
control of our children from the junk food industry, and restore
parental choice and parental authority in our homes and schools
today.
(To
see an example of how food-industry "science" group
ACSH promoted this pro-junk food study via Dr. Koop.com, click
here.)
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One
favorite of the junk food industry which illustrates how this works
was a study published in the June 1999 issue of The American Journal
of Clinical Nutrition.