Scary article about some recent research regarding food preferences and how they are affected by advertising. Some excerpts are below. The jist: Don’t let your kids watch much if any TV. Check out this link for some great no-tv resources: http://www.tvturnoff.org/
“McFood” Better Than Food, Kids Say, Preschoolers Say Carrots Better When Served From McDonalds Bag – CBS News
Its not the food, its the brand name. Marketing strongly affects 4-year-olds food preferences, find Stanford University pediatrics researcher Thomas N. Robinson, M.D., and colleagues.
In all cases, the majority of the kids said the “best” foods were those linked to the McDonald’s brand, even though the only differences between the bags were the McDonald’s logos (no special advertising materials were used).
77 percent of the kids said the same french fries, from McDonald’s, were better in a McDonald’s bag than in a plain bag (13 percent liked the ones in the plain bag; 10 percent could tell they were the same).
61 percent of the kids said milk tasted better in a McDonald’s cup (21 percent liked milk in a plain cup; 18 percent could tell it was the same).
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Nothing happening with the whole second child thing. We’ll keep you informed and flooded with pictures once available. In the meantime why not look at some super cute pictures of the baby’s big brother.
So let me start by saying that I totally don’t get this whole CEO thing. They get paid big, big bucks and frequently don’t do anything. I’m not a believer that the one person at the top makes that much difference. Hopefully it won’t for Chrysler.
In there wisdom Cerberus, Chrysler’s new owner, appointed the ex-CEO of Home Depot to run the turnaround of their newest acquisition. This is the man who managed to let Home Depot lose 8% of its stock value during an unprecedented housing boom and at the same time Lowes (a company with stores basically across the street from every Home Depot, selling the same stuff) is going gangbusters. And for this he gets a huge golden parachute on his way out.
Supposedly they hired him for his turnaround expertise. He sure turned Home Depot around (glad I don’t own their stock). His pay this time is linked to the company performance. So if you see a man in a brand new Chrysler begging for quarters just say “sorry Bob, why don’t you get a real job”.
from MarketPlace
Today I mostly just hung out with Wesley. We spent a lot of time drawing on the driveway with chalk. That is probably his number one pastime. He doesn’t do much drawing himself, although he does like to break the chalk in half. Mostly he dictates what should be drawn. In our driveway right now we have fish, a giant carrot, an alligator, a goose and too many other animals to mention.
During the hot afternoons we are relegated to the shady portions of the driveway. Not because of the 90+ degree weather, but because the driveway is just too hot for Wesley to handle. He can’t sit on it if the sun has been baking down.
Today we saw a small beetle. It wasn’t moving much and when the wind blew it flipped him over. Wesley was very concerned and ordered him “up” as he tends to do. I tried to explain that the beetle wasn’t going to get up, but that wasn’t much help. I flipped him back upright, but Wesley wasn’t satisfied. He wanted that bug to be moving. It old Wesley that the beetle was sick and got even more concerned. He repeated “sick” many times and I finally distracted him by being eaten by the alligator. As soon as Amber got home he told her about the sick beetle. After his nap we were back outside for a bit and he immediately went to where the beetle was and said “sick?”. I told him the beetle must have gotten better because he was now gone. Thank you stiff breeze.
I love that about him. Both his concern for others that he sees as being hurt (be it Rudy, Mom, or a bug) and also the fact that he never ever forgets anything. Guaranteed that he’ll mention the sick beetle tomorrow.