Marketing junk food to children is terrible. Marketing junk food to girls is even worse. It may seem like simple syrup fun when you’re young, but take it from one who knows–it takes years to undo those sticky sweet illusions.
My favorite candy growing up was Charleston Chew- its chocolate marshmallow goodness was not only delicious, it was educational, too! It made for excellent temperature experiments: it somehow got even more tasty frozen, and when heated in the microwave, it exploded and broke your mom’s best glassware. But what I didn’t know then was that this sugar high would come crashing down when I’d meet the real Charleston Chew a decade later: the frat boy I dated from South Carolina with a tobacco problem. (He was not sweet, but did explode and break shit when heated.)
It’s sad when reality overrides nostalgia, but it’s inevitable. Girls are raised thinking a “Happy Meal” is something you get at McDonald’s, only to realize it’s just a date that doesn’t end hiding in the bathroom. But even that false advertising is nothing compared to the class action suit I’d like to bring against Hostess for deceiving American children. The hardest thing about the childhood version of a Hostess was licking abnormally hard frosting off of a cupcake. The hardest part about the adult version is fitting all your dirty laundry in the oven, plating the takeout before your guests arrive, and still remembering to hide your antidepressants.
Not. The. Same.
I guess the moral of the story is this: the next time you find yourself cruising the snack aisle, think twice. The food industry has been polluting our bodies and minds with empty calories and empty hopes since we were children. And while you think you may be just one fix away from sugar bliss, it will never be as good as you remember.
Well, with one exception. The juice box still delivers a smile:
