In spite of the recent changes made by McDonald’s with regards their Happy Meal selection, study shows that many kids still remain junk food eaters. The threat of obesity with kids is still very much existent, what with all those other calorie packed food we find at the grocery that are obviously targeting the younger market.

According to a report, fast food, supermarket prepared meals, and other meals not being inside the home, is really ruining our kids’ diets. The reason for this may be because these food choices are readily available, very convenient and saves time with the preparations.

The way to curb this, apparently, is to truly make an effort to cook at home and serve meals straight from the kitchen to your family’s dining table.

“We cannot control where these eateries are located or how they prepare their foods, but we can decide to cook more at home, which will ultimately save money and help keep our families healthy,”

It does seem like a lot of work, but ultimately, it’s your kids’ health that benefits from this.

You can start by planning weekly meals, and then buying the ingredients at the grocery store. You have to carefully read the labels of these ingredients and find ways to replace other items that may be deemed as high calorie, or high sugar.

As a consumer, the homemaker has the power to really make sure that her family’s health is at its prime, by paying attention to the food we eat and serve.

When you’re raising kids, you will realize that there are plenty of things you can never do without. You would need it often enough because they are handy and they can help make things easier for you and your handling of children. You would need this often enough because your kids are going to be using these a lot.

The following are things you need to stack up around the house, in your purse, or in your diaper/kiddie bag:

1. Baby wipes. Always so handy, I cannot imagine going around the house and out of the house without it. I have it in my bag even when the children are not with me. Force of habit. I use the wipes for literally everything that needs wiping. With children, it’s easier to keep them looking clean after playing in the yard or eating at a fast food restaurant.

2. Bandages or band-aids. Sometimes, I need it more than the kids need it. It’s a quick relief for cuts. When the children are out in the playground and they cut themselves, wipe the wound with baby wipes and cover it in band aid…and they’re back to playing again as if nothing happened.

3. Hair elastics and bands. This is especially true if you have girls. They always lose theirs so I don’t know what they do with it. But having this in your bag at all times is handy for quick grooming.

4. Baby powder. In this heat, a dab of baby powder can be refreshing and relieving.

There is a wealth of information both online and in journals about the effects of advertizing on children.  Really, it’s too much to put into a blog post; you could have a whole blog with daily posts dedicated to the topic of children and advertizing. 

But we do know that children absorb messages from the wider culture, and advertizers are the ones who put those messages into the wider culture.  Now, this isn’t all bad; how will consumers know what’s available if we don’t see it advertized?  People need to sell stuff and people need to buy stuff, and advertizing facilitates that relationship.

The scare stuff is when that relationship is built on exploitation of any group of people, but especially kids.  There are ads that exploit kids’ need to fit in, to feel secure, or to get positive attention.  There are ads that exploit gender or racial sterotypes, and kids just assume that anything they see on TV or in print is reliable.  Now, we adults know that’s not true, but kids accept the authority of what they see. 

Among the overwhelming amount of information and opinion on this topic, here are a few facts, gathered chiefly from the Love Your Body Day website.

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  • For children ages 6-17, the number one after-school activity is watching TV.

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  • Students spend about 900 hours in the classroom and 1,500 hours in front of the TV each year.

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  • Children who watch four or more hours of TV a day are less likely to read at grade level or play well with friend. Children who watch four or more hours of TV a day are more likely to believe claims made by advertisers.

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  • Saturday morning commercial TV advertisers bombard children with ads for sugary cereal, salty snacks, fast food and junk food.

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  • Before teens reach the legal drinking age they have watched 100,000 alcohol commercials.

Those are only a few of the alarming statistics you can find about kids and ads.  We don’t have to wrap our kids in cotton wool or lock them away from the world.  But we should take the time to talk to them about what they see and hear, so that they will learn to think critically about the advertizing that they abosrb. 

Remember, advertizers’ job is to sell stuff.  They are not interested in our children’s well-being…that’s our job.