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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
The "food police," i.e., the folks at the Center for Science in the
Public Interest (CSPI)--read all about them at http://www.consumerfreedom.com/activ....cfm?ORG_ID=13 --are at it again. This time it's not "junk" food itself being blamed for our "obesity epidemic," it's the marketing (advertising) of it . Think Jacobson, Wootan et al. will EVER figure out that it's not food that makes people fat, but the over-consumption of it, or that (some) *parents* need to learn to say "NO!" to their kids? Here's the latest CSPI report (http://www.cspinet.org/new/200311101.html): CSPI Hits Marketing Junk Food to Kids Food Companies Undermine Parents, Overfeed Kids, Says Report Food marketing aimed at kids undermines parental authority and helps fuel the epidemic of childhood obesity, according to a report issued today by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The volume and variety of marketing techniques has exploded, the group says, as food marketers seek new ways of bypassing parents and directly influencing kids' food choices. Regrettably, most of the foods marketed directly to children are high in calories and low in nutrition, the group says. "Parents are fighting a losing battle against food manufacturers and fast-food restaurants, which use aggressive and sophisticated techniques to get into children's heads and prompt them to pester their parents to purchase the company's products," said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at CSPI and the report's author. "SpongeBob Squarepants, Winnie the Pooh, Elmo, and even sports stars like Jason Giambi are enlisted to push low-nutrition foods on kids." The CSPI report identifies a plethora of ways that companies target kids in their homes, in their schools, on the web, and wherever else kids go. Examples highlighted in the report include: * Campbell's "Labels for Education" program encourages families to collect labels from Campbell products that schools can redeem for equipment. It's hardly model philanthropy, says CSPI, seeing that kids' parents would have to buy some $2,500 worth of soup , for the school to qualify for a $59 stapler. * Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. * McDonald's Barbie has the doll dressed up as a McDonald's clerk, feeding French fries, burgers, and Sprite to kid-sister Kelly in a restaurant playset. "Unless McDonald's is paying you for ad space in the playroom, leave this toy at the store," Wootan said. Same goes, she says for other junk-food ads disguised as toys, like Play Doh's Lunchables kit, where kids are encouraged to assemble Play Doh versions of Oscar Mayer's notoriously fatty and salty lunch box items. * The Oreo Adventure game on Kraft Foods' Nabiscoworld.com web site is one of many corporate "advergames". In this video game, children's "health" is reset to "100 percent" when kids acquire golden cookie jars on a journey to a Temple of the Golden Oreo. Oreos are also marketed in a counting book for kids, the Oreo Cookie Counting Book, which involves eating 10-or 535 calories' worth-of Oreos. The Oreo Matchin' Middles shape-matching game, produced with Fisher Price, turns playtime into a chance for companies to cultivate brand loyalty and sell junk food. * Pepsi's website profile of New York Yankees baseball star Jason Giambi, which prominently displays the quote, "I usually have several Pepsis each day-it really lifts me up," is one of many examples of a junk-food marketer linking consumption of its product with fitness. * Cap'n Crunch Smashed Berries cereal-which, predictably, has no berries at all-encourages overeating in its magazine advertisements. Once such ad in Nickelodeon magazine reads, "Kids smashed 'em in the factory so you can fit more in your mouth." "No amount of eye-rolling can capture how hypocritical it is for food company flacks to talk about 'moderation, balance, and exercise," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "Anyone who looks at these marketing techniques can see that they encourage excess, not moderation. Almost exclusively, they encourage consumption an unbalanced diet of high-cal and low-nutrient foods. And to link junk foods like Oreos or Pepsi to physical fitness or athletic prowess has to be one of the most cynical and unfair marketing strategies I've ever seen." In the 1970s and 1980s, the Federal Trade Commission considered restrictions on junk-food advertising aimed at kids, but those efforts were blocked by food, toy, broadcasting, and advertising industries. CSPI says that with rates of obesity at all-time highs in children, now is the time to set standards on what foods may be marketed to kids on television and in schools. CSPI also recommends that governments sponsor media campaigns that encourage healthy eating and physical activity, and that grocers put low-nutrition foods at parents' eye level, not kids' eye level. CSPI encourages state and local governments to fund their own nutrition media campaigns by earmarking or increasing taxes on soft drinks. More than a dozen states already have such taxes, though their revenues typically go into general funds, and are not spent promoting good nutrition or exercise. Today, CSPI also called on Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson to make the issue of marketing junk food to kids a central focus of the administration's anti-obesity campaign. JG We must exchange the philosophy of excuse--what I am is beyond my control--for the philosophy of responsibility. --Rep. Barbara Jordan |
#2
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
* Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids
one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. Really? Is it really against the law in some states to give a kid a doughnut for getting an A or behaving himself? * Pepsi's website profile of New York Yankees baseball star Jason Giambi, which prominently displays the quote, "I usually have several Pepsis each day-it really lifts me up," is one of many examples of a junk-food marketer linking consumption of its product with fitness. Should Pepsi only use old fat ugly people for its pitchmen? |
#3
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
"Ignoramus19587" wrote in message ... In article , JG wrote: The "food police," i.e., the folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)--read all about them at http://www.consumerfreedom.com/activ....cfm?ORG_ID=13 --are at it again. This time it's not "junk" food itself being blamed for our "obesity epidemic," it's the marketing (advertising) of it . Think Jacobson, Wootan et al. will EVER figure out that it's not food that makes people fat, but the over-consumption of it, or that (some) *parents* need to learn to say "NO!" to their kids? Here's the latest CSPI report (http://www.cspinet.org/new/200311101.html): I see no factual misinformation in that particular CSPI report. I challenge you to point out just where is CSPI lying, in the report that you posted. Their facts/data may be okay (which *states*, as opposed to, say, school districts, forbid the use of food as a reward?); it's their conclusions/allegations with which I take issue. That food manufacturers use sophisticated techniques that make children overeat, is pretty obvious. Guns don't make people fire them. Cars don't make people drive them. Gambling games/devices don't make people play/use them. Hookers don't make people patronize them. Alcohol/drugs don't make people ingest/inject them. And (drum roll, please) food manufacturers/marketers don't MAKE people buy/consume their products. That giving schools incentives based on school sales of junk sodas, Welcome to capitalism, friend! It's the system of *choices*. People get to prioritize their needs/wants. Apparently many schools have decided that generating revenue via the promotion/sale of various foods and beverages of questionable nutritional value is more important than acquiescing to the demands of some that such practices be stopped. makeschildren drink too much of the sugar laden water, is also obvious. See above. That they benefit from overeating, is also obvious. That they benefit from replacing healthy foods with crap, is also obvious. That they have no financial incentives to make children healthies, is also obvious. It is NOT schools' job to "make children healthy"(!) If schools' promotion of "junk" food and beverages concerns you, have you considered offering them (school administrators) *more* money to cease their practices (i.e., have you considered outbidding the "food-pushers")? Have you considered pulling your kids (and the $$$ attached to them) out of any schools that engage in such promotion, and/or encouraged other, like-minded parents to do the same? This is a free country. That means that capitalists are free to market foods that are bad for the children. It comes with the territory, so to speak. Thank God! Capitalism rocks! g But that also means that parents should be informed so that they can counter those capitalists and raise thwir children to become healthy and fit young people and not sugar addicted cripples. Yes, parents should be informed. It's THEIR responsibility to see that they are! And yes, overeating does cause obesity. But what causes overeating? The individual him/herself? g No one's coercing the overweight/obese to overeat (or to refrain from exercising). Put yourself in a parents shoes. Your children are deluged with advertising of products. Their favorite cartoon heroes are peddling those junk products to them. I *am* a parent (two daughters, 27 and 16). No one's forcing kids to watch any programs that contain advertising of products (or advertising techniques) of which they disapprove. Children are not able to critically assess such promotions until a certain age. Granted. It's obvious a lot of adults aren't able to, either. You have no idea what is in those products, froot loops, and other ****. Ah, but I do! (I read the "nutrition information" labels on the packaging.) Would it not be appropriate to learn just what these froot loops and so on contain, and then take appropriate action, pointing out to children that they should ignore advertising of junk food? YES! This is a role/responsibility parents should take on. I do not always agree with CSPI. Their hyperfocus on "saturated fat" may be misplaced. But the particular report that you posted is all facts and the facts are likely to be true. I was under the impression that "facts" are, by definition, "true." g The same cannot be said for *reasoning* based on facts, however. We as parents have to be vigilant and keep our children's best interests in mind, and recognize that the junk food peddlers are not there to help us. They are if you own stock in the company! JG Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. --Calvin Coolidge There's one form of bigotry that is still acceptable in America -- that's the bigotry against the successful. --Phil Gramm |
#4
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
"Ignoramus19587" wrote in message
... In article , Roger Schlafly wrote: * Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. Really? Is it really against the law in some states to give a kid a doughnut for getting an A or behaving himself? * Pepsi's website profile of New York Yankees baseball star Jason Giambi, which prominently displays the quote, "I usually have several Pepsis each day-it really lifts me up," is one of many examples of a junk-food marketer linking consumption of its product with fitness. Should Pepsi only use old fat ugly people for its pitchmen? No, but we should be aware that pepsi won't make you slimmer and more beautiful. I'd really like to meet a person who sincerely believes that Pepsi has such powers. g Whic his what CSPI is saying, pretty much. The CSPI is a bunch of elitist nannies. Members apparently believe people are pretty damn stupid and that it's their (the CSPI's) mission to save people from what they (the CSPI) believes to be "bad" choices. They use beautiful people to promote pepsi, but pepsi does not make you more beautiful. What makes you think Pepsi is asserting that you'll be more beautiful if you drink their beverages? |
#5
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
"Ignoramus19587" wrote in message
... In article , Roger Schlafly wrote: * Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. Really? Is it really against the law in some states to give a kid a doughnut for getting an A or behaving himself? * Pepsi's website profile of New York Yankees baseball star Jason Giambi, which prominently displays the quote, "I usually have several Pepsis each day-it really lifts me up," is one of many examples of a junk-food marketer linking consumption of its product with fitness. Should Pepsi only use old fat ugly people for its pitchmen? No, but we should be aware that pepsi won't make you slimmer and more beautiful. Whic his what CSPI is saying, pretty much. They use beautiful people to promote pepsi, but pepsi does not make you more beautiful. i Yeah, and they use half nekkid women to make cars look more appealing to men, tall good looking basketball players to promote underwear, women who would never dream of using a dime store hair product to sell hair color, cute little dogs to sell vacuum cleaners, backdrops of romantic resorts to sell perfume, and really stupid stuff to sell Wachovia's 'uncommon knowledge' (Do you want to invest with a company who gleans insight from a canoe or squirrels? Those commercials drive me up the wall - they should have just sent their investment planners to continuing education classes with the money they spent on that ad campaign but I digress.) We all know that a new truck will not induce nymphets to surround a man and that Michael Jordan really can wait to get his Hanes on me and that the best color and highlights come from an expensive salon. If we buy an Orek vacuum, the dog will still shed and wearing a certain scent has almost never resulted in being swept off one's feet to a tropical island with a handsome man wearing a white linen suit (if nothing else, dress is much more casual in the islands). As far as Wachovia goes, my money stays elsewhere, thank you very much but I do know the name of a company that I had not heard of several months ago. So, if you want to sell to kids, you use icons and images that kids find appealing. And if you are a decent parent, you limit your child's consumption of junk food. What about the flip side of the coin? My son was very impressed with basketball stars 'obeying their thirst' and out performing others because of PowerAde. As a result, he was more active. Kids who are physically active typically do not have a weight problem. j |
#6
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
"JG" wrote in message
t... The CSPI is a bunch of elitist nannies. Members apparently believe people are pretty damn stupid and that it's their (the CSPI's) mission to save people from what they (the CSPI) believes to be "bad" choices. Are these the same people who wrote about movie theatre popcorn and whole milk as a source of fat? I must say that I changed my behavior because of the info put out by them. I would have never thought popcorn could be as loaded as they reported. j |
#7
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
In article i4csb.20377$j_4.6326@lakeread05, Julianne says...
"Ignoramus19587" wrote in message ... In article , Roger Schlafly wrote: * Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. Really? Is it really against the law in some states to give a kid a doughnut for getting an A or behaving himself? * Pepsi's website profile of New York Yankees baseball star Jason Giambi, which prominently displays the quote, "I usually have several Pepsis each day-it really lifts me up," is one of many examples of a junk-food marketer linking consumption of its product with fitness. Should Pepsi only use old fat ugly people for its pitchmen? No, but we should be aware that pepsi won't make you slimmer and more beautiful. Whic his what CSPI is saying, pretty much. They use beautiful people to promote pepsi, but pepsi does not make you more beautiful. i Yeah, and they use half nekkid women to make cars look more appealing to men, tall good looking basketball players to promote underwear, women who would never dream of using a dime store hair product to sell hair color, cute little dogs to sell vacuum cleaners, backdrops of romantic resorts to sell perfume, and really stupid stuff to sell Wachovia's 'uncommon knowledge' (Do you want to invest with a company who gleans insight from a canoe or squirrels? Those commercials drive me up the wall - they should have just sent their investment planners to continuing education classes with the money they spent on that ad campaign but I digress.) Furthermore, Pepsi isn't what makes you fat. Indeed, many people on successful reducing diets have a soft drink now and then. The cause of fat, as ever, is to eat more in calories than one expends. Whether those calorites be Pepsi, or garbanzo beans and yogurt, or a cheeseburger. Rational folks eat balanced meals, limit snacks, and don't hew to any unecessary ideologies concerning food. What a parent would need to teach the kids would be: 1. You may or may not like Pepsi just because so and so on an advertisement does. 2. How to eat a balanced diet which does not exceed one's needs calorically. Only the first is related to Pepsi. Banty |
#8
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
Very young children, under 2, don't have judgement and watch 2 hrs +
of tv. Should they be brainwashed by food commercials at that age? I'd like to see all TV aimed at preschoolers be rid of junk food commercials - give parents a chance! "JG" wrote in message et... The "food police," i.e., the folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)--read all about them at http://www.consumerfreedom.com/activ....cfm?ORG_ID=13 --are at it again. This time it's not "junk" food itself being blamed for our "obesity epidemic," it's the marketing (advertising) of it . Think Jacobson, Wootan et al. will EVER figure out that it's not food that makes people fat, but the over-consumption of it, or that (some) *parents* need to learn to say "NO!" to their kids? Here's the latest CSPI report (http://www.cspinet.org/new/200311101.html): CSPI Hits Marketing Junk Food to Kids Food Companies Undermine Parents, Overfeed Kids, Says Report Food marketing aimed at kids undermines parental authority and helps fuel the epidemic of childhood obesity, according to a report issued today by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The volume and variety of marketing techniques has exploded, the group says, as food marketers seek new ways of bypassing parents and directly influencing kids' food choices. Regrettably, most of the foods marketed directly to children are high in calories and low in nutrition, the group says. "Parents are fighting a losing battle against food manufacturers and fast-food restaurants, which use aggressive and sophisticated techniques to get into children's heads and prompt them to pester their parents to purchase the company's products," said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at CSPI and the report's author. "SpongeBob Squarepants, Winnie the Pooh, Elmo, and even sports stars like Jason Giambi are enlisted to push low-nutrition foods on kids." The CSPI report identifies a plethora of ways that companies target kids in their homes, in their schools, on the web, and wherever else kids go. Examples highlighted in the report include: * Campbell's "Labels for Education" program encourages families to collect labels from Campbell products that schools can redeem for equipment. It's hardly model philanthropy, says CSPI, seeing that kids' parents would have to buy some $2,500 worth of soup , for the school to qualify for a $59 stapler. * Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. * McDonald's Barbie has the doll dressed up as a McDonald's clerk, feeding French fries, burgers, and Sprite to kid-sister Kelly in a restaurant playset. "Unless McDonald's is paying you for ad space in the playroom, leave this toy at the store," Wootan said. Same goes, she says for other junk-food ads disguised as toys, like Play Doh's Lunchables kit, where kids are encouraged to assemble Play Doh versions of Oscar Mayer's notoriously fatty and salty lunch box items. * The Oreo Adventure game on Kraft Foods' Nabiscoworld.com web site is one of many corporate "advergames". In this video game, children's "health" is reset to "100 percent" when kids acquire golden cookie jars on a journey to a Temple of the Golden Oreo. Oreos are also marketed in a counting book for kids, the Oreo Cookie Counting Book, which involves eating 10-or 535 calories' worth-of Oreos. The Oreo Matchin' Middles shape-matching game, produced with Fisher Price, turns playtime into a chance for companies to cultivate brand loyalty and sell junk food. * Pepsi's website profile of New York Yankees baseball star Jason Giambi, which prominently displays the quote, "I usually have several Pepsis each day-it really lifts me up," is one of many examples of a junk-food marketer linking consumption of its product with fitness. * Cap'n Crunch Smashed Berries cereal-which, predictably, has no berries at all-encourages overeating in its magazine advertisements. Once such ad in Nickelodeon magazine reads, "Kids smashed 'em in the factory so you can fit more in your mouth." "No amount of eye-rolling can capture how hypocritical it is for food company flacks to talk about 'moderation, balance, and exercise," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "Anyone who looks at these marketing techniques can see that they encourage excess, not moderation. Almost exclusively, they encourage consumption an unbalanced diet of high-cal and low-nutrient foods. And to link junk foods like Oreos or Pepsi to physical fitness or athletic prowess has to be one of the most cynical and unfair marketing strategies I've ever seen." In the 1970s and 1980s, the Federal Trade Commission considered restrictions on junk-food advertising aimed at kids, but those efforts were blocked by food, toy, broadcasting, and advertising industries. CSPI says that with rates of obesity at all-time highs in children, now is the time to set standards on what foods may be marketed to kids on television and in schools. CSPI also recommends that governments sponsor media campaigns that encourage healthy eating and physical activity, and that grocers put low-nutrition foods at parents' eye level, not kids' eye level. CSPI encourages state and local governments to fund their own nutrition media campaigns by earmarking or increasing taxes on soft drinks. More than a dozen states already have such taxes, though their revenues typically go into general funds, and are not spent promoting good nutrition or exercise. Today, CSPI also called on Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson to make the issue of marketing junk food to kids a central focus of the administration's anti-obesity campaign. JG We must exchange the philosophy of excuse--what I am is beyond my control--for the philosophy of responsibility. --Rep. Barbara Jordan |
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:58:12 GMT, "Roger Schlafly"
wrote: * Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. Really? Is it really against the law in some states to give a kid a doughnut for getting an A or behaving himself? Not against the law for parents to do so, but I guess some states decided that schools should not do this. I agree that food should not be used as a reward, btw. But then I don't think external rewards for grades and/or good behavior work very well in any case. -- Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits |
#10
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New Target of the Food Police (CSPI)
In article ,
toto wrote: On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:58:12 GMT, "Roger Schlafly" wrote: * Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good behavior or academic performance. Really? Is it really against the law in some states to give a kid a doughnut for getting an A or behaving himself? Not against the law for parents to do so, but I guess some states decided that schools should not do this. I agree that food should not be used as a reward, btw. But then I don't think external rewards for grades and/or good behavior work very well in any case. I don't know . . . if Krispy Kreme wants to promote education, what ELSE could they give away? Granted, there are limits to that -- I wouldn't want Budweiser or Marlboro offering THIER product free for every A! But a donut? The little grocers down the street from the grade school my kids went to in Mass had a sign in the window every time report cards came out that they would give something -- a candy bar, I think -- to every kid who came in and showed them at least one A on a report card. I kind of liked it; and the owner/operator got to know the kids and supported the school in other ways, too. meh -- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care |
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