How did this happen??
When I attended grade school, children simply exchanged little cards or notes for Valentine’s Day. Somehow, in the years since, Valentine’s Day has morphed into a feeding frenzy with loads and loads of candy and other sweets taking center stage. I was SHOCKED when my two boys came home from school on Wednesday with literally, a shoe box each FULL of candy given out by classmates for Valentine’s Day.
Not only that, each class had a party with juice, cookies, and other refined carbs to stuff the kids with before sending them home with enough candy to keep their sinuses clogged and noses running at least until the Easter candy fest starts all over again.
What are these people thinking? Don’t they know we have a childhood obesity crisis going on in the Western world? Don’t they realize that children as young as 10 are regularly being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a degenerative disease once only found in adults primarily over the age of 50? Don’t they realize that children’s bodies are increasingly made out of “mush” (exact word used by my chiropractor to describe the bodies of children he treats) where injuries and broken bones occur for seemingly little to no reason at all?
These types of injuries rarely occurred years ago when kids played outside a lot more and played a lot harder, for that matter. A friend of mine whose 13 year old daughter plays competitive soccer told me that last year, every single girl on the team with the exception of one or two suffered a fracture of some kind during the season! I played a number of competitive sports growing up including speedball (a cross between football and soccer), and I never saw a broken bone. Not one.
Could people really be that oblivious to the serious and shocking degeneration of our youth that is occurring right before our eyes? Am I the only one who can see it? I don’t think so. I think most people see it but feel powerless to stop it. So, they ignore it.The commercialization of Valentine’s Day is so complete that folks take it for granted that giving a shoe box full of candy to a child “is just what you are supposed to do”. This is simply not normal, folks! Just because everyone does it doesn’t make it “normal”. Giving that much candy to a child, many of which already show signs of weight issues is just plain crazy. Until “the tipping point” is reached where enough parents rebel and refuse to participate in the sugar madness that has taken over our schools at not just Valentine’s Day, but ANY day that is even remotely a cause for celebration, then the degeneration will continue.
I am happy to report that when my kids came home with all this candy, they each requested one or two special pieces to keep and then promptly threw the rest in the trash. They did this on their own with no comment on the situation from me. I hope more than just my kids did exactly the same thing or something at least similar!
“You teach, you teach, you teach” .. the final words of Dr. Weston A. Price.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Thank you. It bothers me seeing obese/overweight children, as I was one myself but no longer. Even school meals are unhealthy, feedings kids canned fruit with all that added sugar drenched in the syrup. The flavored milks are loaded with sugar, and chicken they give then has tons of fat from the skin. Ridiculous. I pack my kids healthy lunches with real, whole foods. Never have I let them drown themselves in candy, just as an occasional treat–like it should be.
I love that they threw the candy away!! My son is 3.5 and in preschool. They have a healthy food policy at school but they still allow parents to send birthday treats and candy with valentines. My son’s teacher knows my concerns about this, especially since we are doing GAPS, and she so kindly took ALL the candy off of my son’s valentines and put them in a separate bag, and gave me the bag with the candy and my son the bag with his valentines. I was shocked how heavy that bag of candy was! It was like Halloween all over again!!
we made honey almond amaranth heart cookies today! my kids loved it!
Your kids are awesome! Well, you deserve a lot of the credit for teaching them so well!!
It is literally sickening. I talked to one of my child’s teachers about this problem and she very happily said that they had solved the problem by deciding to have a pancake party with pancakes that are dyed pink. Um……my gosh. It is really mind blowing to me how sick our society is and how no one seems to make any connection between nutrition and illness! Thanks for the rant, I was feeling the same way this morning.
I brought oranges an kiwis in this morning for the Sweets Fest at my son’s school, though admittedly I was originally planning to make peppermint patties (coconut oil, peppermint oil, honey, and chocolate). I also took it upon myself to bring in a big pot of porridge. Some of my son’s classmates were harassing him almost daily about his porridge being “gross”, so I wanted to give them a chance to try it for themselves. What is there not to like about local og rolled oats (soaked overnight with whey made from local, og clabbored milk – not to mention the yummy cream cheese on my homemade sourdough bagels), local og maple syrup, local, raw og cream, and og raisins? None of these kids would even try it, as they stuffed themselves silly with Kix and Apple Jacks. My son happily sorted through his stash of candy and notes, discarded everything that had dyes in it (and that was everything “edible”), put the toxic plastic toys in the Goodwill bin to donate, and read each of the valentines from his friends – with joy!
Yes, I’m expecting a box full of candy to come home today. I’ll put it away until she forgets about it & then I get rid of it.