I'm in a hotel in Orlando, Florida, where the obesity epidemic seems to have surpassed epidemic proportions. It doesn't seem to bother anyone, as buffets of all sorts are overflowing beyond capacity.
The hotel distributes USA Today, which ran a point/counterpoint about regulating the food industry. One writer argues that regulating advertising is useless, and points to the example of the tobacco industry. He conveniently forgets that tobacco advertising was ended on TV and radio many years ago.
I side with eliminating ads toward kids, as some European nations have done. MacDonald's is an evil empire, seducing children to eat its miserable products and drag their parents along, who doubtless need them even less. In Macdonaldland there's no obesity, no diabetes, no heart problems, and no discernable intelligence or discipline.
I had mixed feelings about the overweight teenagers who sued MacDonald's. Certainly their problem was of their own doing. But every parent who takes a kid to the supermarket is bombarded my a torrent of advertising--Jimmy Neutron and the Rugrats calling from junk-food
boxes to kids, who relentlessly seek cooperation from parents.
Let's end advertising to kids too young to discern between propoganda and reality, and make our country a better and healthier place to live.
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