"birthday parties" news and stories

Children's birthday parties are noisy, chaotic and always chock full of sugar, sugar, sugar. It is nearly impossible to stray from the sweet path while planning a child's party. What group of eight and nine year-olds is going to get giddy over kelp snack packs or tofu sandwiches? I don't ever really relish the thought of being trapped in an enclosed space with ten screaming with eight year-olds who are hopped up on candy and cake, but as a mother wanting to give her daughter a fabulous blow out what am I to do? Whip up a batch of carob muffins with sugar free apple sauce on the side? I think not. However, I have found one way to lessen the blow somewhat. Fruit Pizza. It is fast, easy and not as evil as a lard laden cake from the grocery store bakery, plus the children love it and eat it all so that I can't. I don't really follow any set recipe, but following is a loose description of how to make it.

Schools have been considering and enacting bans on unhealthy snacks, from eliminating soda machines to setting strict nutritional standards for foods that are brought in to sell to the cafeteria at lunch. The goal is to avoid putting students into situations where, perhaps due to peer pressure, they choose nutritionally poor foods over healthier ones. Some obesity-conscious educators want to take things even further and ban outside snacks from the school yard. This would not only effect the treats that teachers bring in to celebrate birthdays and other events, which would no longer include cupcakes or cookies, but could potentially change the way that parents pack lunches for their children.  A few schools even have bans of sweet foods at school parties, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Every bite counts because of concerns over childhood obesity, experts say," but they also should look at the amount of time children spend in school, and what they're doing with that time. Suggesting that parents provide smaller or healthier treats is certainly a positive step towards combatting childhood obesity, but it is not a suitable solution to the obesity problem when schools are also cutting the length of and funding for sports programs and recesses. Nutritionists say that diet and exercise together are the keys to a healthy lifestyle, not diet alone. That standard is the one that should be enacted in more schools before kids are left with only celery and raisins at snack time.

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One of the first major studies on the birthday industry has been done in England. It showed that over £1.6 billion pounds, or approximately $2.8 billion dollars, are spent annually on birthday celebrations. The average Briton spends about £47.77 pounds on their own special day and around £30.69 on birthday presents for others. The managing director of the financial firm which conducted the study suggested that the amount spent reflects the advance planning that events like birthdays receive, because people now plan months in advance for something that was once simply marked with a cake.

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