((Mon1ca))
Tossing that box of Lucky Charms back on the shelf at the grocery store after your kid tried to sneak it into the cart is going to be a lot harder, if House Republicans have their way. They’re on the side of food companies that don’t want the White House telling them to stop marketing sugary cereal and junk foods to kids.
President Obama’s administration has proposed voluntary guidelines to keep kids from being bombarded with cartoon characters hawking junk food and other marketing attempts to get them to get you to buy them sugary and fatty foods. In order to use kid-friendly marketing, the guidelines would suggest the foods be healthier.
But even though those guidelines would be voluntary, food companies are all up in arms against them, saying the government is going too far, says the Associated Press.
Republicans are helping them out by trying to delay those guidelines with a provision in next year’s Federal Trade Commission budget “that would require the government to study the potential costs and impacts of the guidelines before implementing them.”
See, the food companies think everyone will be super mad at them if they don’t kowtow to the guidelines, and the GOP agrees. Missouri Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, the Republican who sponsored the provision, says she is concerned that the voluntary rules “would lead to extraordinary pressure from the federal government.”
The administration isn’t trying to totally kill off Tony the Tiger, say proponents of the guidelines, just try to urge companies to incorporate more whole grains and cut some sugar.
GOP pushes back on effort to limit kids’ ads [USA Today].
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Yes, please take more of my tax money and give me more government intervention in my life. Why not just create a progressive handbook that tells how to do everything?
Follow up with government cameras installed in our homes to check on us and dispense proper corrective measurement when we don’t wipe our asses in the government approved method. After all, the government always knows best.
God forbid the parents make the decisions on what their kids eat.
Conservative Republicans are all low life, self centered, scaredy cat scum. They should all buy guns and practice shooting at one another. Only then will this be a safe, clean and healthy place to live.
guns=sugary cereal
To all the hardcore Repubs here talking about government overreach etc, let’s see how quick the GOP rallies against Trojan if it tries to sell condoms to teenagers. Suddenly the government will intervene in people’s lives then.
Just because they’ll be wrong about that, doesn’t mean they’re wrong about this. There are ALWAYS going to be hypocrites in the government. I’ve come to accept that. But, when they’re right, they’re right (at least for the moment).
I don’t believe that’s right either. I’m not a Democrat or a Republican (not that much difference between them nowadays anyway). I just believe in less government is better government. People need to take responsibility for themselves and not rely on the government to do it for them
Is it really that damned hard to say “No” to your kids?
I do it everyday. I must have some sort of super power!
Yeeeeah, gotta side with the Republicans here, as much as I hate to do so. Yet another example of the government trying to turn us into Nannyvile USA. How about, oh I dunno…being a PARENT! Take some damn responsibility. Oh, no, ads are brainwashing! Well…I find that to be a pretty exaggerated statement, but even if it is true…guess who actually has the money to buy sugary cereals. Just guess! Do the kids have money? Doubtful. Oh, right…the PARENTS are the ones with the money. Maybe they should try what my mom did with me. Saying the word “No”.
Parents should learn how to tell their kids “No” rather than relying on government regulation.
The key to the sugar cereal is to get the really high in sugar one that they really want right about the time they have the stomach flu. A few bouts of throwing it up and they’ll never want sugary cereal again.
A family member who happens to have Type 1 diabetes visited recently, and I spent a lot of time reading nutritional labels on the food in my pantry as I tried to feed her. I was interested to see that Raisin Bran, a cereal that really isn’t marketed to children, has 17g of sugar per serving, and Coco Puffs, a cereal that clearly is intended for the kiddie market, has only 10g of sugar per serving. Now, I know that you can’t only look at one piece of information out of context and get the whole picture, but my point is, parents need to read labels, monitor what their kids watch, and make informed personal decisions about what they bring into their homes. Wny expect the government to do for you what you don’t have the will to do for yourself (“stop me before I buy a sugary cereal again!”)? Where we spend our consumer dollars can be a powerful tool for change.
My Aunt’s kids don’t eat sugary cereal, and has a tradition of only letting them do so for a week or two around Christmas as a treat. You know she wins this epic battle against her children, Post, and Kellogg’s? SHE DOESN’T BUY SUGARY CEREALS!
I realize you may think this is a fun little Republicans-are-evil-and-don’t-care-if-your-kids-become-fatties post, Ms. Quirk, but this is the same kind of idiocy as that of the moms in San Fran “fighting” the Happy Meal toys at McDonald’s, only this time it’s at the federal level.
How about a new headline: “Republicans stop the government from growing larger, prevent smothering of the population.”
I just don’t get the controversy. Should someone be allowed to mislead your child? Should someone be allowed to tell them that something of low quality was actualy high quality? Something unsafe is safe? Something dirty is clean?
No?
What if they did not lie but twisted or withheld facts until the truth was hidden? What if they employed psychologists to this end and took advantage of the vulnerable mind of a child?
Still no?
What if they paid you? What if they paid you millions of dollars and gave you very nice things? Would you then allow them access to your child? Would compensating you personally make up for the fact that they were misleading your child? Would you be doing right by your child if you did that?
STILL NO?
Well, what if they did not pay you, but paid someone else. What if they paid everyone around you, or maybe certain people in key places to allow them access to your child or to mislead your child on their behalf? Would it be okay then?
The consensus here seems to be that yes. As long as they mislead skillfully, and do not compensate you personally for it, then it is permissible mislead children.
I would like to offer, as an alternative, that it is never really ok to mislead children, even if they do it really well, and even if they don’t compensate parents personally. I think it is not ok because the misleading is still taking place. And, just as though they tried to lie directly, or directly manipulated, or directly manipulated but paid me; I would not limit my response to simply conveying the correct information to my child. I would go the extra step and try to stop those who intend to mislead. And really, I feel the fact that they do it well and that they do it indirectly is all the more reason to put a stop to them.
That’s as plainly as I can put it.
p.s.
If I were to allow someone to lie to my child, or mislead them skillfully, or pay me to mislead them skillfully, I would not consider it an embrace of some sort of freedom. Quite the opposite, I would consider my child less free, as they have been mislead, and are less likely to make informed decisions. I would also consider myself less free, as I was unable to do the one thing that mattered; stop my child from being mislead.
“Should someone be allowed to mislead your child?” How about “Should parents be given back their free will as consumers, which apparently the federal government needs to waste time and money in an attempt to restore it?” Last time I checked, elementary schoolers don’t carry around wallets, their parents do, the latter of whom are the ones BUYING the so-called unhealthy cereals.
Post, Kellogg’s, and their fellow cereal companies are not the Philip Morris Company, yet somehow any attempt to restrict their business practices is treated like they make nicotine-O’s (Nicotine-berries? Frosted Nicotines?). These companies also make Total, Special K, Cheerios, Mini Wheats, and a host of other less sugary cereals to choose from. If parents want their kids to be healthy, they’ll choose those boxes instead, because healthier cereals are NOT kept in some lockbox behind the counter with the cigarettes and cough syrup, preventing helpless parents from giving their kids a better breakfast.
So the answer is, ‘Yes, it’s OK for people, under certain circumstances, to mislead my child.’ Or at least, you wouldn’t support an effort to stop them. Their right to sell things trumps your child’s right to accurate information . . . or rather, trumps the desire you and your child have for accurate information, as accurate information is not a right or something one should expect.
That’s not a strange or crazy answer, most people think that.
The parents DO have a right to information, on behalf of their kids (not to mention a right to decide where to spend their food budget): It’s called the “Nutrition Facts” label, and it’s already on the side of EVERY SINGLE BOX of cereal. I don’t have kids, but thanks to my literacy and decent vision, somehow, without the federal government’s help, I’m able to read that a cup of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch has 20g of sugar while a cup of Kellogg’s Special K cereal has 4 g of sugar while doing my grocery list at my local A&P. Wanna know which one I bought?
I feel terrible for the parents who don’t have this same right to information too, wait what?
Nutrition information is a useful, but Information the company presents regarding the cereal is not limited to the nutrition information. It is just the opposite, the company focuses on presenting your children, directly, an innumerate idea of their product: that it is completely healthy, that it is suitable for everyday consumption, that it will make them happy. The bulk of their time, energy, and money is directed to this end. How much time and energy is directed towards conveying accurate information: A small area on the side of the box that, depending on how young your children are, they can’t possibly understand. Yes, you are there to help correct this manipulation, but should such a large part of your efforts be directed towards undoing the manipulations of other people?
You wouldn’t let a stranger down the street sell your children magic beans. The more time and energy they spent, the more sophisticated their methods, the angrier you would get, and appropriately so: your children don’t need magic beans and the person selling them does not have your children’s best interest at heart. We shouldn’t let these kind of people hide behind the concept of freedom of speech and choice while they trample all over it.
None of what you say matters one bit if you are a responsible parent. Explain to kids what’s going on and they will eventually understand. It’s your job to look out for them until they do. Part of learning the difference between fact and BS is being exposed to both ‚Äì it‚Äôs called the real world. If you aren’t exposed to reality as a kid you grow up to be a whiny liberal who has to depend on others to look out for their best interest.
“Part of learning the difference between fact and BS is being exposed to both ‚Äì it‚Äôs called the real world. If you aren’t exposed to reality as a kid you grow up to be a whiny liberal who has to depend on others to look out for their best interest.”
So, were you exposed to the idea that the world was flat? Likely you were, as an example or leadup to the way the world really was, but I doubt you spent a lot of time exploring the idea. Did you spend a great deal of every day bombarded with the idea? Were people spending millions of dollars to get you to believe the idea? Was there an ad campaign, with prizes inside? Probably not. Has it turned you into someone who has to be led around by others? Probably not.
Should anyone try to teach my children, or the children of someone else in the community, that the world was flat, and spent millions of dollars on the initiative; I would be foolish to simply tell them ‘Not so’ and allow the hypnosis to continue. I’d have a duty to put a stop to those who spread falsehood. I think the same is true here.
This is such a subjective rule. Why don’t parents just stop being lazy? Then it wouldn’t matter what companies do.
Mary Beth Quirk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo
I guess freedom of speech is completely irrelevant here?
This kind of advertising is fine because . . . Free Will. Freedom of Choice. Etc.
So, what happens when we make choices that are not influenced by million dollar ad campaigns. They do still exist. Are those choices not free choices? Has your decision making been superseded or interfered with in some way?
Comments seem to imply that heavy influence is required for a ‘free choice’ to take place.
There is a cure for begging kids. It is called “no.” If no doesn’t work, it becomes, “We are putting back everything you’ve picked out so far.” After that, it becomes, “You are grounded from…” I can keep going, but I won’t. Just parent your kids and it won’t matter that they see a few commercials on TV.
Listen, I don’t buy cereal becasuse it’s healthy.
Extremely liberal bias story. Hmmmm, getting to be a theme on Consumerist.
I understand the logic parents need to parent, but it’s only so much can be done since everything advertises. I those people say all parents need to be parents or the government should turn a blind eye to this crap, all kids should be raised in convents.
Maybe the corps shouldn’t advertise to children to nag their parents, instead do a GOOD commercial that is meant to minipulate.
Whatever happened to telling your kids “no” and turning off the damn television?