Today is World Humanitarian day, to celebrate they have asked everyone to tell them “The World Needs More ______.” Here at Super Sprowtz we think the world needs a lot of things, more veggies, less preservatives, more healthy foods, less junk. We need more public advocates of healthy eating, less advertisements from fast food companies. We tried to boil down our answer in to one short sentence and we have come up with this, the world needs more sustenance and less substance. In other words, like the old saying goes, “quality is better than quantity,” which hits the nail directly on the head when it comes to children’s food and nutrition. Most often parents give children what they want, instead of what they need to be healthy, happy, and successful. We have conditioned ourselves to appreciate convenience of quality. Our society is based on temporary happiness, whether that means indulging in that refreshing coffee drink every morning, or pleasing that sweet tooth with our favorite dessert. We rarely think about the long term effects it can have on our bodies. We please our children to make them happy in that one moment, we do it for the now moment, and that is where our will-power and nourishment lacks and harms us.
How about we take a product like soda. Something everyone loves and ultimately craves. The moment we get a taste for it, it becomes increasingly hard to resist, and this is all the more reason why it is a threat. The reason we yearn for soda is because the sugar and caffeine gives us that “bliss point” we were searching for, but ultimately it makes us tired, sluggish, and thirsty for more. Instead of spending money and calories on something that harms our health, why can’t we spend it on a product such as water that will sustain, hydrate, and nourish us? Let’s see what would happen if we had one can of soda every day for a year: one coke has 140 calories, so that would mean around 4,200 calories a month, or 50,400 calories a year. Since 3,500 calories is equivalent to one pound, in a year alone, one would gain around 14.5 additional pounds from having just one normal -sized can of coke per year. Now that is to say that they do not eat other junk food or do any form of physical activity. If that does not alarm you, a study done on children ages 2-5 who drank a soda daily showed that these children were 43% more likely to become obese than those children who did not. How important does quality over quantity seem now?
You see, it is so easy to indulge in what pleases us, that we do not focus on what will actually benefit us. In my opinion, the problem with obesity lies in our behavior, our choices, and our daily routines. The issue cannot be pinpointed to certain foods, rather to how much of something we eat. What we eat is crucial and determines how our bodies feel at the end of the day. Once we can focus on nourishing our bodies rather than pleasing them is when obesity will decline and our society’s health will improve. Buying nutritious foods, fresh ingredients, and establishing healthy habits is how we can become healthy, successful, and ultimately happy. So what do you think, how can we provide more sustenance over substance?
Super Sprowtz 