Disney Eliminating Junk Food Ads
After Michelle Obama’s very doable recommendation of growing your own produce (NOT!) as a cure for our obesity epidemic, we then have Disney, with Michelle present, saying that they will eliminate junk food ads on some of their programs.
How, may I ask, is this supposed to slow or reverse the obesity epidemic?
Here’s an analogy:
Say you live in a crack house, but the television you are watching STOPS running crack ads. Do you quit the crack? I think the answer to that is a big ol NO as you are LIVING in the crack house. Why would you stop doing crack?
68.2% of the American population is obese or overweight. Therefore, the PURCHASERS, the parents, are the one’s making the buying decisions. Sure, kids will ask for crap food, but do you have to buy it.
Yesterday, my son said he wants a Mazerati. I said it’s best to do well in school, get a job, work your ass off and maybe, just maybe, you will have enough money to make the purchase. I didn’t run out and buy him a car, and to be honest, he’s only 11!
So, will eliminating ads REALLY stop the problem. We eliminated smoking ads, but 20% of the population still smokes. Maybe it helped a little, just a tiny bit, but I don’t think this will put a dent in the obesity problem.
One more stat: if you have one overweight parent, your risk of obesity goes up 50% – with two overweight parents, the risk rises to 85%.
Tough if you are growing up in one of those households.
Why don’t we work on the parents and then have the effect trickle down to the kids? That makes the most sense to me.
Thoughts???
Jim
It’s only a drop in a very large bucket, but any decrease in junk food/drink commercials helps. If TV commercials were not effective, the pharmaceutical industry would never have lobbied to be allowed to bombard American viewers with medication ads day in and day out, a practice equally obscene and destructive to public health.
Comment by Sara — June 9, 2012 at 2:48 am
Love it! You are so right Jim! I have a 5 year old and she asks for candy once in a while and I always give a firm NO. My friend called me “the mean parent.” I said, “Well being ‘mean’ is my job and I believe it is child abuse to put all that crap in my kid’s body. She will thank me later!”
Comment by Elizabeth — June 11, 2012 at 6:07 pm