Oh, what delights have I been missing out on in spurning TV and the cereal aisle at the grocery store? Apparently, a lot of them. Dinosaur eggs that hatch in oatmeal? Gross. Who came up with that one? Fruit snacks that leave a tattoo on the tongue? C'mon, people, weren't you satisfied with Pop Rocks?

So how come food manufacturers think kids need to play with their food? Do you buy this stuff?

Not surprisingly, 89 per cent of the "fun" food products marketed to kids were of poor nutritional quality because of high sugar, fat or sodium, as reported in a study published in the upcoming issue of Obesity Reviews. Which is of course making our kids fatter. And some of this stuff isn't limited to the junk-food aisles: I imagine that the organic frozen chicken nuggets, for instance, aren't much better nutritionally than the non-organic kind. Though at least they're not blue. The proliferation of weirdly-colored foods is a trend I find disturbing. How are kids ever going to want to eat, let alone appreciate, quality "real" foods if all they ever get is oddly-colored junk?

I suppose manufacturers will quit making this stuff if people don't buy it. Good luck on THAT one.