And you called it news


I came upon an article written for CNN titled "Report: TV ads strongly influence kids' diet" on December 6, 2005. Among other things, this article stated the kind of influence that TV and movie characters such as 'Spongebob Squarepants' and 'Shrek' have on te nutrition decisions of children under 12. This report didn't come as a suprise to me, it seems to be all that is on TV these days, ofcourse besides despondant habitat bound matrons. Although this report was intriguing, it had not fufilled my hunger for child fattening TV related associations, if you don't mind my insinuation.
After a little searching, I stumbled upon another article, this time from the Times paper in the UK titled: CHILDREN’S JUNK FOOD ADVERTS FACE TV BAN" .I am going to let this portion of the article speak for itself.

Professor Gerard Hastings, of Strathclyde University’s centre for social marketing, found that children’s television advertising was dominated by promotions for sugary breakfast cereals, soft drinks, sweets, savoury snacks and fast food outlets. Other influences on children’s eating were product sponsorship, free food, gifts or tokens, packaging, and promotions linked to films, television programmes and computer games.

He found that many young children, especially those aged under eight, were confused by the powerful advertising messages. Children were unable, for instance, to tell if soft drinks and cereals contained real fruit. There was also evidence that Saturday morning television advertisements had a direct impact on what children wanted to buy when they went shopping with a parent. Professor Hastings acknowleged that so-called pester power was an important factor in the marketing concepts behind the advertisements.

I am very glad that this important information is reaching places all over the world and we are trying to get do something about this problem...


....wait a minute. what was the date of the second one? oh yeah Friday, 26 September 2003!!!! hold on! the article stating that TV was influencing and confusing children in nutritional decisions was written and distributed 3 YEARS before the one on CNN? so that means we haven't really done anything about it except look at it and say, "oh that is a problem!" We are such a productive society, as we sit around and look at it in the TV, or children are eating shit and becoming larger than the 72 inch flat panel plasma TVs they are watching them on. Well, what can I say, if we enter a new ice age and have to resort to cannibalism, we aren't going to run out of lamp oil.


*****

Sorry, that was kinda harsh. Fine that was really harsh, but I guess if people want to kill themselves, its fine with me. I just wish people would care. Message to everyone: Stop being stupid.