The New York Times reports that eleven huge food companies, in the face of regulatory intervention, lawsuits, and a forthcoming government study on childhood obesity, agreed to voluntarily withdraw junk food advertising from children’s TV shows targeted at an under-12 audience.
But does it go far enough? TV is just one component of the advertising spectrum, and the industry’s move won’t apply to “family”-type shows.
Maybe we should treat treat junk food ads like cigarette ads…
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They are completely missing the point with this ban, and it’s as bad as forcing the tobacco companies to advertise against themselves. The parents are the ones purchasing the food for the kids, and if they’re unable to say no and teach their kids to eat relatively healthy then they deserve fat 8 year olds. Teach your kids something, parents.
Why is Burger King responsible for my decision to let my kid eat fast food? Parents have this inalienable right…no, responsibility to say “NO” when their kid demands a burger and fries for every meal. Those that don’t need to watch an open heart surgery on an overweight patient. Get the busy-bodies out of my life and let me be responsible for my own family.
There was an interesting study done years ago that showed that young kids, like below 4/5 years, don’t see a difference between TV shows and the ads. To them, the ads are a part of the show’s entertainment. In other words, kids’ perceptions of the ads are tied to their perceptions of the shows. So if the kid likes the show, then he also likes the ads attached to it.
A good portion of junk food out there has always been targeted for kids, as many adults grow out of the desire to eat fruit chew candy shaped like sharks (do they make Shark Bites anymore??) or Ninja Turtle Pies (wow, I’m making myself sound old).
The point is, if they stopped marketing to kids, they’d loose a huge chunck of their poduct lines.
As for the kids themselves, if they earn the money to buy the junk, then let them buy it. The problem is when a whiny kid demands all sorts of junk food, and the parents load up their school lunches with it. And, if as a parent the kid seems to buy just sooo much junk food with the allowance you give them, tell them you will stop giving them money because they are not using it soundly.
I would be in favour of banning the ads if it were that simple. The problem is one man’s junk food is another’s cousine. Are fruit loops junkfood? I would say so but I’m sure cereal companies would argue. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. Maybe there is, don’t let them watch so much tv and make them go outside and play, and inadvertently, exercise. On the other hand, parents are far too wrapped up in their own life to watch their children. I withhold my vote!
Kids are going to eat junk food even without the ads. If my parents don’t keep junk food around, I’ll go to Billy’s house, because his mom buys soda and chips. If my parents pack healthy food for my lunch, I’ll trade someone for something I want, or worse yet, buy my lunch at school and eat greasy pizza and french fries. The junk food problem goes much deeper than advertising – it’s a part of American culture.
@AlteredBeast: Yes, Shark Bites are still around…ask my son.
I say no, I don’t bring crap into my house…..
BUT it would be nice if the commercials were not on during kid TV time. We are not talking about free speech, or banning fast food. We are talking about limiting a specific advertiser to a specific audience.
If this discussion was about smokes or liquor, the yeahs would outpace the nahs.
I remember as a kid when I saw anything food on TV, I would bitch until my parents finally couldn’t take it anymore and got me it.
Many people are affected by this advertising in giving you a “sudden craving,” but if the commercials were removed I think we would see a small decrease in child obesity. Face it, a lot of parents aren’t really meant to be parents.
As for myself, if the commercials for rice krispis with real strawberries were removed, I would still buy my damn rice krispis with strawberries. If they removed the fast food commercials though, I feel I would be less persuaded to go out and get an easy dinner.
“Targeting” has but two Ts, not three.
@Schminteresting: It has 3 if you stutter while typing
I sure am glad the goverment is looking out for me. I can’t wait for the day we only allow ads for bottled water on television.
The companies already figured it out. Parents are all in “mob mentality” like they always are. Child obesity is on the rise and the media is all over it, so of course parents are freaking out about it. That means less profits as parents move with the other sheep and start looking for healthier alternatives.
What’s can a cheap junk food place do with such a spending shift? Why, hop on board of course! They won’t advertise unhealthy food to kids, but what is unhealthy? The McDonald’s “healthy” happy meal is 4 greasy nuggets and apple slices with sugar-packed caramel dip and a low-fat milk. Sure its under 600 calories, but what’s the nutritional value of the meal? Zip, zilch, nada.
But hey, it’s got a “HEALTHY” label on it, the media is reporting on how all these big bad food companies are changing their ways.
Here’s a question: They are cutting proportions and adding a few lame snacks that “appear” to be healthy, but the same greasy fatty food is still on the menu. Once you get in the door with your “this place promotes healthy eating” attitude your fat kid is going to nag you for a Big Mac, not a salad.
Btw, advertisers know that if you want to market something to a kid under 12, you make an ad featuring kids OVER 12.
The whole “we’ve changed our ways” thing is JUST ANOTHER MARKETING CAMPAIGN.
And its brilliant because the media is running with it and parents everywhere will fall for it.
The Classical Age: “Plato and Socrates are corrupting your children.”
The Middle Ages: “The Devil is corrupting your children”
The Industrial Age: “The [insert ethnic group]s are corrupting your children”
The Modern Age: “The Reds are corrupting your children”
The Internet Age: “The [insert entertainment medium] is corrupting your children”
Yes.
That picture sickens me. Who would let their kid get THAT big?
…I love the first amendment. I really do. In almost all circumstances I hold it up and shove it in peoples’ faces…
…but stupid people keep breeding. Stupid people who don’t ever put their foot (foots? feet?) down and say “NO!” to their kids, and its destroying an entire crop of children.
Sooo…until we have some sort of forced-sterilization program in place for people who can’t pass a test I make up and implement, I don’t think that companies should be free to target parents and children wantonly.
If I can’t tell my kid, “No,” and have it stick, I have failed as a parent.
I don’t care how many times they see it advertised or how often they ask for it, parents (SHOULD!) still make the rules.
It’s a voluntary withdrawal of ads? I don’t see a problem with that.
Maybe we should treat treat junk food ads like cigarette ads…
No, that ads we should treat like cigarette ads are prescription drug ads.
BTW, the increase in childhood obesity and the rise of diabetes is the fault of high-fructose corn syrup that your government makes sure is cheaper than sugar.
It’s not about health, it’s about money.
I think people are looking in the wrong area for an “answer’ to the increased rate of childhood obesity. I personally think it is not necessarily what kids eat, but how much exercise they get. I remember when I kid I played outside all the time. Nowadays kids would much rather play video games or watch the 15 channels that have all day cartoons. You have to force your kid to go outside and play.
The dose makes the poison.
The people that let their kids get that big and who feed their kids “junk” food regularly aren’t going to be dissuaded by anything we do to stop them.
The main concern of these studies and advertising to children isn’t necessarily from traditional media. The concerns are from materials given to schools that are branded/sponsored by a junk food brands, like M&M coloring books, or a counting dvd sponsored by Coke.
What’s even funnier, is that when junk food is pulled from schools, a black market emerges overnight and candy and sodas persist.
Eliminating ads is pointless. They should be limited, yes, but true changes must come from the home and parents. Parents must purchase nutritious food for their children, in addition to teaching how to eat healthy, both in portion size and food choice.
I think parents do have a big responsibility to tell their kids how to eat healthy. However, child advertising undermines these lessons and confuses kids.
The same goes for liquor ads. Luckily, liquor is only advertised on late night and prime time TV, when Mom and Dad are likely home and watching, and probably when the kids should be sleeping. The same should go for unhealthy food.
@ncboxer: Not necessarily(?) force them out, but make it dificult for them to want to stay inside. Kids hate having to work for TV time. But then again, you’d have to keep them in your yard to make sure they weren’t running to Bobby’s house to watch TV.
Parental dicipline is being replaced by redirected blame. The parent is the boss, not the kid.
@A.Twafeletta: We are not talking about free speech, or banning fast food. We are talking about limiting a specific advertiser to a specific audience.
That is exactly what free speech protects.
Let the parents learn how to parent by having insurances refuse to cover the morbidly obese. Personal responsibility and natural selection will take care of everything.
I say we go one step further and unilaterally ban children.
@ Beyond – yeah, pretty much.
Something I find interesting with the whole cereal thing – cereal’s really not the problem here. Rice Krispies, Trix, Cocoa Puffs, and Cap’n Crunch range from 100-140 calories in a full cup. No, they’re not providing fiber, but a lack of fiber is only a tiny piece of what’s making kids fat. And at least, unlike cookies and the like, they’re enriched products. The only way cereal is a big part of the problem is when parents ignore their kids shoveling handfuls of it into their faces in front of the tube. But that’s just me rambling.
I’m so damned glad not to be a kid now. I was skinny as hell up until the age of about 9, when I started to blow up. My mother even took me to Weight Watchers to help me with my eating habits when I was ten. Weight came off for a little while, but then puberty fought back with a vengeance, and it didn’t matter how much or little I ate. I was fat until I was almost 23, and then it fell off. No diet, no clear medical explanation (lots of tests done) – just lost about 80 pounds in a year and a half without really doing anything. It was pretty much connected with crazy puberty hormones.
While a lot of kids are “out of control” with their eating and over-indulged by their parents, I have to wonder if some of this surge in weight, particularly around puberty, might not have some connection to all the hormones being packed into our food.
Is Michelin running some kind of cross-promotion with McDonalds? How else to explain the picture?
@sleze69: “We are not talking about free speech, or banning fast food. We are talking about limiting a specific advertiser to a specific audience.
That is exactly what free speech protects. “
No, this would be a free speech issue, as is any government regulation on advertising. Freedom of Speech means I can say whatever I want, to whomever I want, wherever I want, whenever I want to. If the government tells Entity X that they cannot express Message Y to Entity Z, that is an obstruction of Free Speech. Just because we don’t like the speech – “Hey kids! Eat more Cheetos!”- doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve the same protection.
If the government can limit who can say what to whom, that is not free speech, that is limited speech.
Ben,
suggestible adj.
Readily influenced by suggestion: suggestible young minds.
suggestive adj.
Tending to suggest; evocative: artifacts suggestive of an ancient society
(You want the first one.)
@Steel_Pelican: Does this mean you’re in favor of allowing swearing and nudity on network television? Cause I’m all for that, too.
I don’t care one way or another. Feed your kids what you buy for them. If you choose to make them little fatties, well thats your fault they get laughed at and are ostracized at school/in public.
Of course its most commonly that the parents themselves are overweight. They either don’t care if they feed their kids junk food and fatty garbage because they also eat it, or if its easier for them to make and then get back to watching TV and playing online video poker.
But another appalling trend is what parents will do for kids these days simply because they don’t want their child making a scene at the grocery store for not buying their spoiled brat whatever they are crying for. Most commonly its the mother as they seem to embarrass easier. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been standing in line and kid has had a tantrum for wanting candy and the mother eventually gives in just to shut their kid up.
@nequam:
I want to hurl every time I see that image. At what point do you realize you’ve failed your children as a parent?
I don’t believe advertising is protected by the first amendment, so I’m certainly not opposed to a ban on those grounds.
However, it will not do a damn bit of good. Children want these disgusting foods, not because of some ad, but because they have consumed the food previously. And since the food is so high in sugar and fat their brains release all kinds of opiates in order to reinforce the behavior.
So I put most the blame parents who perhaps have no business having kids. If you are not in a position to raise you kids personally (instead of letting the TV babysit) and cook decent meals for them every day, then don’t have them. You are setting your child up for a difficult, lifelong battle with obesity otherwise.
@Steel_Pelican: I quoted him incorrectly. Free speech protects the advertisers’ rights to promote unhealthy food any time.
I think parental responsibility is the key. Parents simply have to learn to say “no” to their kids. If I bought everything my boys wanted, they’d be 300 lbs. Besides, where would we draw the line? I mean there’s lots of fat grownups out there too!
@B: I’m all for swearing and nudity, period.
@alhypo: I’m pretty sure there is Constitutional precedent that separates advertising from protected speech, but I think that’s a tricky distinction. Could we censor Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion because it contains references to Dawkins’ other works, which could easily be considered advertisements for his other products? Or could we censor a controversial film because it includes product placement, and therefore could be considered advertisement? A musician’s album because it is an advertisement for their live show?
Perhaps a compromise? Legislate that, sure you can spend $billions marketing to kids w/ undeveloped minds. But ONLY obese kid actors. >2x normal body weight, say. Midwestern kids, in other words.*
Every bullet those perveyers of high fructose corn syrup fires would end up hurting themselves. Plus, truth in advertising!
* k-i-d-d-i-n-g!
On the first amendment thing, the Supreme Court has answered this question for us. When they struck down McCain-Feingold, the supreme court ruled that advertising is protected under the first amendment.
@trai_dep: Hey now, I take offense to that. We aren’t all little chubby-lumpkins =(
Why not pick on Texas or something? Aren’t they the fatest state in the U.S?
While I’m a big advocate of parental responsibility (my parents watched what I ate when I was a kid and -gasp- I didn’t grow up obese) I voted yes because the fewer lame McDonald’s commercials I have to see the better. Seriously McDonald’s. You’re not cool. Just let it go.
Personal responsibility sounds great and everyone agreeing that parents need to take care of their own kids would be great, if only they would do so. Stupid people have kids, hell the stupider they are the more kids they have. Many, many parents are too lazy or too stupid to actually exercise personal responsibility. Kids probably should not be eating these foods, and here’s the kicker, even if their genius parents don’t think its a bad idea. Kids have a hard time differentiating between advertising and entertainment up to about 8 years old, limiting advertising to them is not really a big deal.
@sleze69: There’s a difference between commercial speech and political speech, and one most definitely can be limited by time, place and message. Guess which it is?
@B: I believe McCain-Feingold (officially the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002) refers specifically to political campaign advertising, and how that advertising is funded.
And from what I understand, the SC upheld most of McCain-Feingold in McConnell v. FEC.
@B: I hate to double post, but that’s political advertising, which is seen as political speech. Very different from commercial advertising.
@camille_javal:
Interesting, too, is the reported trend toward earlier onset of puberty in today’s kids — some of them are reaching puberty years earlier than their parents’ or grandparents’ generations. It used to be that the average age for girls’ first periods was around 12 years old — now it seems that a lot of girls start around age 9 or 10. Of course that may be because menstruation is related to body fat percentage — if anorexics’ periods can stop, it goes to follow that obese girls’ cycles might start early.
here’s my thing, and argue with me if you want. it’s HARD to eat healthy on a limited budget. and “they” have made it incredibly difficult to find products that are actually nutritious and beneficial.
“100% whole wheat bread!” the package says. “high fructose corn syrup” is still in the ingredients.
“all natural fruit juices!” the label reads. “high fructose corn syrup” is in the ingredients.
what is being put INTO the food is ridiculous, and that’s where change needs to start. even moderately-educated individuals who are able to afford “healthy” foods don’t realize the amount of crap that they are eating. you go into your local Kroger and find ONE loaf of bread that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup in it. you might be able to do it, but it would take 15 minutes. add a couple of kids in the cart, and it’s no wonder people can’t figure out what’s in the food they eat.
stopping these ads is a total farce. it’s a marketing ploy and will have negligible results.
ps — next month i’m buying myself a box of crunchberries for my birthday. oh HELLS yeah. i do it once a year and, frankly, i look forward to it more than a cake. i’m no angel. but at least i KNOW that it’s full of crap.
I voted no, not because I have a problem with a “nanny state” as such, but because banning junk food ads (or controversial literature, or behaviors deemed un-Christian, or whatever) doesn’t help kids learn to make their own decisions. What happens when they go to college? Some people eat lots of crap because they CAN. Mission very much not accomplished. This is a job for hands-on parenting, which means we need to acknowledge that adults have an obesity problem too instead of just pouring all the pressure onto kids.