Imagine walking out to work and just as you cross the street, you see a strange mound of sugar in front of you alongside a group of sugar sculptures in the shape of children. That’s quite an unusual sight. Well, that’s exactly what the people living in New York’s famed Time Square witnessed as one company went out of its way to highlight how sugar affects children.
This impressive stunt came courtesy of Kind, an American company specialising in fruit-based products and sweets, as well as nut-based energy bars. The company originally planned this as a marketing ploy to promote their new Kind Fruit Bites, which, allegedly, possess no added sugars in them.
Granted, that’s probably not a very good or relatable reason for constructing a 6-metre tall pile of sugar packets and some unsettling sculptures shaped like children.
The other purpose for Kind’s sugary endeavour was to highlight how much sugar children consume. It’s estimated that children consume up to 80 grams (19 teaspoons) of sugar in a day, which is more than double the amount that the World Health Organization recommends (25 grams or 9 teaspoons). Not just that, when it’s all added up, it turns out that these children can eat up to their weight in sugar in a year.
So it makes sense that they would build child sculptures, since they’re supposed to represent how kids eat so much sugar in a year that they could, in a way, be said to be made of sugar.
Kind does go out of its way to note that it’s not against the use of sugar. While its products try to put as little sugar as possible, they still do use it. It should also be noted that sugar is a necessity in most dishes, even savoury foods (not just snacks but actual gourmet meals) have some form of sugar.
But we can also understand why they’re trying to highlight the issues with sugar. After all, for as tasty as sugar is it can be quite damaging if eaten in excess, especially when you take into account that most of the sugar we eat is added sugar. Aside from the consumption issue mentioned above, sugar can affect humans, and children, in various ways such as inflammation, addiction and most famously, tooth decay.
Regardless, we have to give recognition to Kind for their little stunt in trying to teach people more about the effects of sugar. It’s a subject that’s worth discussing as much as possible.
Photo Credits: Adweek
