Turning Children To Vegetables
“CAN chicken and cabbage calm an unruly child?”
This is the Mail’s questions of the day. And it is as timely as it is vital.
But what is the answer? Can chicken and cabbage control a child? Can a child be led to chicken and cabbage and made to eat it? Can an unruly child be led anywhere? Is chicken and cabbage, the new bogeyman?
As ever, one question leads to many more.
But first things first – the debate must begin somewhere. And the Mail is investigating.
To go with the chicken, it sees lamb and rice. It sees bananas, apples and sprouts.
Are these the good foods? Are these the foods that will chill the active child, turn the hysterical bundle of snot, tears and belligerence into, well, a cabbage, a chicken?
“There are not good and bad foods but rather susceptible children can react to any of many dozens of foods in an idiosyncratic manner,” says psychology professor Dr David Benton.
Dr Benton has written a report. As she says: “There is a need to develop ways of identifying those likely to react to their diet.”
But how to test the children? The professor does not say. And the temptation is to surely place all children on a chicken and cabbage diet.
And if they can be fed “healthy fats” like omega three – the Mail cites a study by Cambridge University scientist Diane Bamber that found young offenders given fish oils “significantly reduced their anti-social behaviour” – the nippers can be controlledAnd they can become smarter.
The Mail notes “recent research” that says omega three can “greatly increase intelligence in a very short time.”
Indeed, the child may develop their brains and so too their cunning in such a short period that they will work out that chicken and cabbage is less tasty than burger and chips.
They may also work out that mum and dad’s 1970s diet of Space Dust, Slimcea bread and Kia Ora, all preserved beneath a film of Harmony hairspray, never did them any harm…
Posted: 19th, March 2007 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
