Human beings & popular culture keeps evolving. What I’ve noticed as I walk through life is how unhealthy much of the American population has become, including (and sometime especially) children. For reference, I’m Generation X and it wasn’t like this when I was a kid. So what are the causes?

For sure, advertisers targeted Gen-Xers during Saturday morning cartoons and any other children’s programming available back then– before cable & satellite TV. Then MTV, ESPN & TNT/USA came along and advertiser targeting became even more nefarious & precise. It is now a consumer fact that Gen-X and beyond craves Cocoa Puffs, Captain Crunch, Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms, Hostess snacks, Cheetos, Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, McDonald’s & Pizza Hut. Kids my age were bombarded with millions of ads, while today’s internet kids see tens-of-millions of ads by adulthood.

So how do you control your junk food urges when watching TV or browsing the internet? To start, we must define junk food for everything it is. Junk food is a craving we can’t ignore, but it is a health-buster so it must be tamed. It’s all about correct identification, then finding substitutes & compliments.

For instance, after a certain point ice cream becomes a junk food. Everyone loves ice cream, but it’s a gut-buster, so I substitute cottage cheese in my diet and that handles my ice cream craving in most instances. I still have ice cream in my freezer for when the craving becomes the food I eat, I just eat a lot less of it since I substituted cottage cheese. Since cottage cheese can be boring by itself, it needs a compliment for it to be a sustainable substitute. I use jelly/jam or fresh fruit and that compliment gives the variety needed to sustain cottage cheese in my diet. That keeps the waist & ass leaner, while lowering the diabetes risk.

Rule #1 to a healthy diet is: Eat whole fruits & vegetables as staples. Peanut butter is a super-food that goes well with just about anything. So is milk, eggs & real cheese. This reduces meat consumption, while giving your body the necessary protein & good fats it needs. Remember that fresh is best and what is available depends on your geography. Learn to adapt– regionally, seasonally & economically.

For example if you juice cucumbers as part of your regular diet, and suddenly cukes aren’t available or become of poor quality, you must find an alternative source of juice & veggies. Fresh cucumbers are a super-food so making up the difference in lost nutrition will require a major re-adjustment to the fruits & vegetables in your diet.

I’ve mentioned super-foods a few times already, which is a generic term for nutrient-dense foods that give you health. Green peanuts & citrus are super-foods available in the southern latitudes of North America, while apples & cabbages are examples of super-foods that should be worked into a regular northern latitude diets. Consider juice or cider for citrus & apples if not in the native latitude. Understand that apples get mealy in the south due to extreme heat, so they are only super-foods when grown in the north.

Junk food is least damaging if it is consumed when all the body’s nutritional requirements have been met. Be honest with your deepest cravings and find a healthy alternative, particularly in the cereal aisle of your grocery store. Cereal is junk food, but Cheerios, Raisin Bran & granola are among its healthiest forms and can be substitutes. For me, Cheerios satisfies my potato chip craving and my stomach thanks me for it. A bowl of cereal with milk kills a lot of junk food cravings for candy bars, cookies, etc.

A hot air popcorn popper kills the corn meal junk food (Cheetos, etc) cravings. Eliminate bread & pasta from your at home diet, these starches are huge gut-busters, so only consume them when eating out. Substitute and find compliments. Vegetables need creamy dippers to encourage consumption, etc. You need to cover all your junk food cravings with always-available substitutes, otherwise these cravings will ruin your body & physical health. This is one of the most difficult challenges in modern life and one of the most important GenX lessons to learn.