Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Coke and debility

Article by Dr Mercola discusses the pervasity of Coca-Cola in Africa's economy, and soft drinks in general as the number one source of calories the average United States person's diet. Besides the usual points of diabetes from the sugar spike, he describes the biochemistry as a well designed drug: "The only reason you don't vomit as a result of the overwhelming sweetness is because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor."

I'm not an ascetic. I'll have a soda and many another comfort food on occasion, but I tend to notice that my body (the human body), as do (armchair) evolutionary pyschologists, has a disproportionate preference for the sweets, fats, and salts. Although I lack evidence of Mercola's claims, it's with sadness that I view children who dive into such things on a daily basis. Their minds and bodies potential to grow and develop is being destroyed. When I see them imbibe and then retain a half-stupor of concentration, even worse when zoned out to television (or... a videogame... but usually with the children I see, it's television), I see the Idiocracy is rising. Sadly, I see the child as the unwitting accomplice to their own limited cognitive and physical abilities that will plague them through adulthood and into an earlier grave.

Due to my profession (and my son's own near-addiction level of preference for four glasses a soda in a meal), I sometimes muse if perhaps a game would help a young mind to see how their brains are wired for an environment that went out with the stone age. And that to have more fun in this lifetime, one needs to avoid sabotaging their physiological machinery that enables their intelligence and play.

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