Junk-epidemic: Now available in a general store near your child.
Children are exposed to packaged food that contain harmful chemicals on all possible occasions - snacks, casual munching, weekend bday party. Who will control this, if ever?
My living room is a big playground for my tween kid and his gang of 7-8-year-olds. Whenever this kid’s gang is here, I try to serve fresh homemade food to them. Either whip up pancakes from scratch or cut fresh potatoes for french fries. There was this one instance when I was busy, so I gave them chips and cookies from the packet. As much as I hated it, kids loved it and called it a party. The worst part is - next time they refused my fresh french fries, and demanded packaged foods. The change in habit was so quick, it took me by storm.
Image source: bigbasket.com, amazon.com
How would I save my child from forming bad eating habits while he is seeing colorful wrappers staring at us everywhere in shops in India? How come, mothers, are not worried about the long-term impact of such habit-forming junk food? For me, this is an elephant in the room that nobody is talking about.
I have avoided packaged food for as long as I remember. When I was in my first year of college, I stayed in the hostel with my friends. As expected, the mess food was the worst of all the foods I have ever tasted in my entire life. So we decided to buy a small stove to cook ourselves. For me - this meant rice or vegetable soup. For my roommates - this meant only and only one thing - Maggi. I judged them and they judged me. Heated debates ensued - “how could you eat this for dinner”, “right back at you”.
Image Source: https://www.exportersindia.com/product-detail/instant-maggi-5391641.htm
Mind it - Maggi noodles are a national food sensation in India. I often think - why there was a difference in craving for Maggi between me and my college mates? How can I make my child also hate Maggi and similar packaged food?
I could not like Maggi or even packages of ketchup. This mental setup was pre-baked into my brain by my father. He is obsessed with avoiding all outside food. He would go through the ingredients list on the back of packaged foods. He would condemn the preservatives and chemicals. Although he gave in to the occasional pleasures of packaged ice creams, he maintained his distance from ready-to-cook noodles, candies chips, and sauces.
I realize that the craving for food comes from the childhood association of that food item with comfort food. Children are molded at a young age to become habituated to food items, just like religious rituals or cultural situations. Food, the smell of spices, and even the amounts of salt or sugar in food can be learned to be liked or disliked if taught in childhood.
My father’s craziness had a back story - my father worked in his uncle’s sweet shop, and that’s where he learned the reality behind food cooked for others, by others. Even my friend, who works in a Quick-service restaurant, has given up all outside food. In both cases, exposure to behind-the-scene operations of restaurants made them give up eating that food themselves.
Another factor is that - when we see something in our surroundings being done by everyone else without guilt, we start believing it is normal. Packaged food is so widely available, accessible, and acceptable in today’s society, that it is natural for children to think this is normal. The nearby general store is full of colorful wrappers at the Point-of-sale billing counters.
Image source: Indiamart.com
Why were such quick foods developed in the first place? Just like communication technology, Ramen noodles were developed first for the soldiers. Even today, I endorse packaged food for traveling because it ensures hygiene and quick-byte on the go. Packaged goods would add a lot of value during transportation to areas hit by natural disasters.
What started as a convenience for wartime soldiers has become an addiction for peacetime civilians.
My concern here is daily consumption, without the constraints of emergency that call for such convenience. Even if one chooses such packaged goods only a few times - even then their salt & spice content, and chemicals will entice the child’s taste buds.
Today, with information about harmful chemicals in food, parents are aware and ready to put in the effort to cook home food. However, they cannot change the habits of their children to prefer home food over outside food. Parents cannot shut down platforms that make harmful food easily available to children on daily basis.
But I see some rays of hope.
In 2006, US schools banned sugary drinks like soda inside school premises. And big soda companies agreed. This gives me hope for India to take up similar measures.
In Bhutan, many big food brands have not been able to enter the market. Most Bhutanese people still eat just a few homemade rice pops for snacking. What if in India also, some residential societies ban habit-forming unhealthy foods from their vicinity?
Today’s Schools educate kids against junk food as part of their kindergarten curriculum. Most schools discourage parents to pack junk foods like chips and cookies for lunch-box to school.
There is a flurry of “healthy food” startups in India, driven by mothers who got caught in the same dilemma as me. Check out
https://snackadoodle.in/
https://www.truvitals.in/
As a mother, I must provide a healthy environment for my child. Raising a child takes a village because the child’s surroundings also mold his long-term habits. Enforcing healthy eating habits is one of those things where I need my village to back me up. I need my government and country to pay attention to this junk epidemic and take strong measures to curtail harmful ingredients as well as the sale of such products.