The estimated cost of treating obesity-related ailments in adults was $147 billion for 2009. With the health care system already faltering, allowing companies to decide for themselves whether to peddle junk food to kids is a fox-and-henhouse policy this country simply cannot afford any longer.
This article was originally published with the title Underage, Overweight.
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25 Comments
Add CommentWhy do the editors point to only "the Federal Government" in responding to this problem of overweight children. Isn't the federal government the agency who put together the food pyramid with all the carbohydrates loading the calorie proportions? (and now you have an article about the benefits of saturated fats in the diet as opposed to carbohydrates). Why not just advocate parents not subjecting their children to advertising of any sort?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is certainly room for regulation of marketing and advertisements directed at children, but the Constitution and the First Amendment are always raised when trying to restrict speech. This is an issue that I believe the editors should have mentioned, at least in passing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere does advertising junk foods fall under free speech? These corporations are not raising points about the behavior of our government or trying to advocate one or the other side of some public service issue. They're saying 'BUY OUR STUFF'. Not the same thing at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese food companies who advertise directly to children are predatory companies that fall in line with predators who sexually prey upon your children with sexual advertisements. You do not allow your children to watch or participate with sexual predators, so why would you allow your children to associate with food predators? No company should be allowed to predatorily advertise to children under 18 years of age.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe law prevents sexual predators from ruining your child's life...the law must also prevent food predators from ruining your child's life; a predator is a predator.
This is complete nonsense. Kids don't need advertising to tell them that foods with fat and salt and sugar taste good. And restricting cartoon characters or whatever from those ads is not going to matter, except in brand selection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost kids can eat plenty of sugar and fat and still be healthy - in fact, they need these things for energy. They just need to spend less time on the couch.
Let freedom prevail and let the feds take a back seat. And James, comparing food companies to sexual predators - please!
Instead of making this a political issue which, by definition will fail, Let us try a simple solution: PARENTS , STOP BUYING THIS STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you soccerdad. I don't know how, but I am always surprised by people's willingness to abdicate their personality responsibility in living. Believing someone else (i.e., government) should make their choices for them, and more specifically, allowing someone to limit their choices. The day will soon be here when Joe Camel and Ronald McDonald will be BFF's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Gov needs to mind there own business, And parents need to get a spine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat freedom of choice is there really when a handful of corporations and their lobbies set the rules of the market? It is confounding to me that people feel threatened by the government operating in the public interest to protect the health and well-being of our children, but not feel the least bit concerned about corporations spending billions each year to manipulate our choices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome of the comments here are either a tribute to the success of industry-funded front groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom, that preach parental responsibility to the exclusion of corporate accountability (as if the two were mutually exclusive) or a naivete about the influence a small set of food corporations exert over industry and people's diets.
You want choice? Put limits on marketing to populations that can't interpret marketing's persuasive intent. Make success in the marketplace a condition of providing a better product, not just a condition of who can rig regulations to ensure the greatest market dominance (or build market share on the basis of persuading a vulnerable population).
Then we might truly have a democratic food landscape, instead of the strip malls with Taco Bell, KFC, and McDonald's where "free choice" is parodied.
The First Amendment commercial speech doctrine does afford significant protection to corporate advertising. However, that protection does not extend to advertising that is false or inherently misleading. Extensive research conclusively establishes that young children are unable to comprehend the persuasive intent of advertising. So all advertising directed at children under 8--and arguably under 12--is inherently misleading and can be regulated in part or in total. Legally, the challenge for government is to tailor any junk food advertising restrictions so that they don't impinge too much on adult access to information. But the political challenge for government will be a much more difficult hurdle to clear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me guess, soccerdad, you probably think that products like "Sunny D" "Kraft Macaroni and Cheese" "Gogurt" "Froot by the Foot" chicken nuggets, fish sticks, breakfast/"granola" bars or packaged oatmeal are good choices. These are just a FEW of the foods that are mass marketed to our children every day. I remember becoming exhausted aguing with my kids over these foods to rhe point that I no longer took them to the grocery store! My kids are teens now and still claim what an mean mom I was for not indulging them in this crap. Their step mother didn'ty help when she served greasy burgers and fries and told my kids I didn't feed them "right" because they didn't get that crap at my house. My poor kids had to suffer throughturkey burger meatloaf made with unrefined oats instead of bread. I can assure you, though, as a single/divorced parent, it was not an easy thing to feed my kids a healthy diet. The expense and prep time are more extensive with healthy food. You can cheat, though, when you start reading labels. I served hambuger helper, which has enough sodium in one serving to explode your arteries, by cutting the sauce packets in half. They contain all the sodium - and fat! It may not have been the best meal, but it was quick, easy, and more nutritious, especially when served with a fresh or frozen vegetable like broccoli or mixed veggies
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this9no sauce) which my kids actually liked. Exercise is good, soccer dad, but your kids azren't going to want to plkay soccer and/or play as well if they pumped full of crap. FYI - my kids are now 15 and 17 (girls) and neither one is even close to having a weight problem - they are both on the slim side and both eat like horses - like they should!
With one or two exceptions like Soccerdad, almost nobody has addressed the problem that the sugary, salty, fatty stuff just tastes better. Instead of lamenting that kids prefer these foods, come up with healthy foods that taste better. Saying we can all learn to like broccoli doesn't cut it. Also, the fast food is fast and predictable. It may add to the charm of YOUR dining experience not knowing when your meal will appear, and not knowing if the vegetables will be soggy or crunchy. Not mine, and most other people, either. I'm with Regular 101: "Make success in the marketplace a condition of providing a better product." Compete with the food industry and beat it: come up with healthy foods that taste better to consumers and are as convenient and cheap as fast food. The problem is that regular101's solution, like many others, is to pay lip service to the better product idea and call for "rigging regulations."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe best way to protect a vulnerable population is make them less vulnerable. The biggest single thing we can do in that direction, which would reap a host of social benefits, is to train kids to ignore their peers. Getting kids more active would also help, and one of the biggest obstacles here is our demented tort system. Who can blame kids for seeking vicarious excitement when any real life excitement like climbing trees or exploring streams is off limits because of fear of liability?
Whoa, Steve D! I never called for the "rigging of regulations," I called for an end to it. Just wanted to clarify :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that to protect a vulnerable population we must make them less vulnerable. But to get them to ignore their peers? Really? Why not nurture a food and media landscape that is safe for all children? Making the standards these agencies are working on mandatory, would be the right step in that direction.
As for junk food tasting better. There's a reason for that. Sodium, fat, and sugar have addictive properties that are highly stimulating and disruptive to neurological development. So coming up with healthier foods that have these properties may be a tall challenge. Sometimes as with alcohol and cigarettes you just have to set guidelines that protect the public's health and reduce the impact on our collective health care expenses.
It may be just coincidence, but I think the increase in child obesity began not long after soda-pop changed sweeteners from cane sugar to high-fructose-cornsyrup (HFC), and containers changed over from glass to BPA-leaching polycarbonate plastic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou could call those kids the HFC-BPA generation.
but you can say no, the feds are not your child's
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisparents you are. grow up and take some personal responsibility
Instead of sticking it to the marketing companies, how about parents start taking a little more responsibility for their kids, and stop stuffing junk down their children's throats? While they are at it, they could also lead by example and start eating responsibly themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes our ability to understand the persuasive intent of marketing make us less susceptible to it? I don't think so. Marketing strategies that target adults can be very effective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do we consider marketing strategies that are likely to harm adults' well-being to be ethical? I think these should stop too.
Aww, Regular101, it's a tough problem so we'll just impose regulations on everyone. If you can't see a way to come up with healthy foods that are more appealing than commercial foods, maybe you should just admit you're not qualified to be in this discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't see it as a regulation problem. If, as several have said, it's the addictiveness and pervasiveness of it, then it's just like cigarettes. And the things that work for cigarettes are stigma, education, high taxes, and lawsuits. Especially the taxes, for treating the health problems (or maybe even using them to prevent health problems by funding exercise and athletics).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is bad for people should be heavily taxed and the information about why it's heavily taxed should be prominently displayed on the label: "This product is taxed at five times the rate for healthy food because it will make you sick with diabetes, cardio-pulmonary disease, cancers and your children will have birth defects.The taxes help pay for the long term acute care you or your family will need."
Guys I fully agree with the title of this article: in short we are assuming too many calories.Food in excess is not only unhealthy (just think of diabetes-u get all those unecessary sugars around in your body...) but also a waste of money that may be for example invested in much better things for the health eg your dentist..)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAndy
Government intrusion into this realm will do little good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis knee-jerk reaction to make "somebody else" solve a problem is one based in laziness and impatience.
It is not governments role to deal with this it is a waste of time and effort to even try.
You,, the advocate.. have a job to do.... convince people to raise their kids as you think they should.... talk to them, advertise to them.
Creating workfare jobs for "regulators" is all this article advocates.
And, gee,,, isn't it curious how it would "just happen" to provide those jobs for the professional peers of those who advocate this???
It isn't just money that this workfare brings.. it is power to intrude on others lives... and this motive is the greater one and the more despicable.
Pushy, know-it-all busybodies.. who cannot manage to peacefully convince others... decide to simply force them.
Why does the Federal Government have to be the solution? Freedom of choice means the freedom to make bad choices as well as good choices. Informing the public about the health hazards of unhealthy foods is as far as this article should have gone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in a town where marijuana is becoming decriminalized. Is it really possible I'll live in a world where advertising salty, fatty foods will be more punishable than selling marijuana?
Because where the law concerns minors it is less an issue of personal choice and more an issue of parental competence. Allowing one's children to continually feed on such low-quality products can be regarded as gross neglect of the child's healthy development. In that case, the parent has the responsibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sad part is that the federal government feels it needs to get involved at all. This course is a testament to the ineffectiveness of parents of this generation.
Government intrusion? Oh please. The government is already intruding on your choices and shaping the marketplace. Too bad right now its at the behest of a handful of very strong corporate lobbies. It's about time the government operated instead to protect the public interest before special interests. Our government was not intended to be an instrument of the few to manipulate the many.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo excuses, anyone can go on a diet! Look here- http://auto-parts-mall.net
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this