In the spirit of back to school, let's fatten up our kids and send them into anaphylactic shock! Seems that wasn't much of an issue in the '50s, when fall advertising aimed at lunch-packing moms revolved around peanut butter, dairy and sugar. The kids in the marketing were invariably trim and rosy-cheeked, never lactose intolerant or nut allergic. Yet Mrs. America, the domestic goddess of the time, stuffed those brown bags lovingly (irreconcilably?) with processed food. Hey, Madison Avenue said it was the right thing to do. Cookies and jam were often positioned as "pure enjoyment" food, while milk, cheese and peanut butter were touted as brain food, not projectile-vomit-inducing and constrict-your-throat food. Ah, nostalgia. Check out some more back-to-school print ads from a simpler time, courtesy of Reminisce magazine.
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