Medical and public health organizations recommend that parents feed their children fruits, vegetables and lean protein, starting at 6 months and for the duration of their childhood. This recommendation is based on
evidence of health benefits for children, as well as developmental benefits for children and adolescents. A spate of recent work challenges the extent of these benefits, and ethical criticism of nutrition promotion
as stigmatizing is also growing. Building on this critical work, we are concerned about nutrition promotion that praises nutrient-rich foods as the “natural” way to feed children and adolescents.
This messaging plays into a powerful perspective that “natural” approaches to nutrition are better, a view examined in a recent report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
Promoting eating vegetables and lean proteins, particularly from local sources, as “natural” may be ethically problematic, and, even more troublingly, it may bolster this belief that “natural” approaches
are presumptively healthier. This may ultimately challenge public health’s aims in other contexts, particularly childhood obesity.
The current obesity epidemic in US children has sparked intense, condemnatory discussion of vegetable refusal. This public discussion often emphasized that some in the antivegetable and pro-fast-food camp
believe that vegetables cause children to refuse their dinner, cost too much to buy or take too long to prepare...
~~~end satire~~~
Let's go with that for a little while. Why not just feed our children powdered food for life. There are now so many alleged high-quality powders that can be mixed with water or some sort of
milk...why do we bother eating actual food anymore? Natural schmatural. Let's move to powder. Chewing is for ancient people.
We wouldn't want anyone to think that something that came from the earth is healthy--it needs to be laboratory-made. For the sake of the children. They don't want to eat kale anyway.
Yum.