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What we really need is a limit on advertising. Corporations manufacturing packaged sugar like coke, cereal etc. should not be able to manipulate young children
by littletimmy 11y ago
What we really need is a limit on advertising. Corporations manufacturing packaged sugar like coke, cereal etc. should not be able to manipulate young children to get them addicted to their crap. Sell this stuff in plain white boxes, ban advertising to young children, and in general, limit the free speech of soulless legal fictions when they target children.
- yincrash 11y agowhere do you draw the line? should all food be sold in white boxes with plain lettering?
- the-dude 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Name_(brand) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Name_(brand)
- littletimmy 11y agoWe'll have to draw, as in most things, an arbitrary line by consensus. Spinach is on one side, sugar on another, Milk is on spinach's side, tobacco on sugar's, and so on. This is stuff that we should decide as a society to keep ourselves safe from corporate psychopaths.
- yincrash 11y agoI suspect consensus will be very very hard when it comes to food.
- tomjen3 11y agoConsidering that more people are afraid of Aspartame than sugar, I rather not have a "consensus".
- blumkvist 11y agoThere is a popular theory that diary based products are bad for health. Who decides the sides and how does he make the decision?
- duckmysick 11y agoWhy not? In fact, why not go even further and enforce that all websites have only a black serif (or monospace) font on a white background? No more screaming colors, moving parts, confusing adverts - just plain content.
- blumkvist 11y agoI laughed heartedly thinking this is sarcasm. Then became gloomy to mildly irritated when I realized it's probably not.
- lfjmfkekdk 11y agoThat will certainly not pass the first amendment test.
- kachnuv_ocasek 11y agoTwo clicks from the 'First amendment' Wikipedia article led me to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Commercial_speech_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite... So yeah, it might pass.
- lfjmfkekdk 11y agoWell, not exactly. Tobacco advertising bans, aside from TV and radio, were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92990&page=1 http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92990&page=1 You can ban it from TV and radio if there's a compelling government interest but even the head medical chied of the ADA says there is no definitive proof that sugar causes diabetes. (See my link above)
- kachnuv_ocasek 11y agoSure. I'm just saying it's not completely ruled out.
- ScottWhigham 11y agoI'm not sure what the 'first amendment test' is when it comes to corporate advertising but our government already limits how alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and marijuana can be advertised. We also limit what and how things can be advertised to children. So I'm not really sure your sentence is correct.
- lfjmfkekdk 11y agoWell if you wanted a ban on advertising sugary cereal to kids, you would have to pass the "Central Hudson" test. You would have to prove a compelling government interest to ban the ads to children. The ADA chief medical scientist has already said there is no conclusive proof that sugary food causes diabetes. Also I don't know if you've seen any kids cereal commercials recently, but they're not making deceptive claims (like "eating this cereal will make you healthier"). http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/commercial.htm http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/commerc...
- andyfleming 11y agoRegulating advertising then gives control to whatever organization makes those decsisions. Are their interests always going to be in alignment with our own?
- bufordsharkley 11y agoFrom working in a non-commercial radio station for years-- I think applying non-commercial criteria is pretty easy: 1) No mentioning of prices 2) No calls to action 3) No aggrandizement of product. Underwriting can be a neutrally-worded description of product. I've really come to believe that all media that could be described as public (the outdoors, network television, radio, perhaps much more...) should abide by these rules, insofar as commercial advertising pollutes it horribly.
- andyfleming 11y agoWhat we really need is education. Children and adults alike should better understand nutrition and what they are putting in their bodies. It's no secret that soda and so many other drinks are packed with sugar, but no one seems to care or understand.
- orangecat 11y agoIt's no secret that soda and so many other drinks are packed with sugar, but no one seems to care or understand. Or they do understand, and are willing to make the tradeoff. I'm about to order a pizza. It will be unhealthy, and also delicious.
- PopeOfNope 11y agoWhat we really need is fewer people speculating about what other people need. Follow in the footsteps of your forefathers[0] and mind your own damned business. [0]: http://rivergrandrapids.com/the-first-official-us-coin-said-mind-your-business-fact-of-the-day/ http://rivergrandrapids.com/the-first-official-us-coin-said-...
- wpietri 11y agoYou realize that the advertising industry, which clears north of $200 billion a year in the US, is entirely devoted to manipulating what other people need, right? If those people will stop trying to mind (and control) everybody else's business, there'd be a much smaller problem here.
- PopeOfNope 11y agoYou realize people are going to do what people are going to do. The only thing you can really control is yourself and your reactions to things. I don't watch TV, read newspapers, watch football games, browse the web without an ad blocker, or live in a city. I haven't seen an ad in years. When I do venture into the city, I recognize that I must have seen ads, but I can't recall what any of them were; I'm too busy thinking about other things. Stop blaming other people and focus on yourself.
- PKop 11y agoYoung children don't do the grocery shopping. Parents need to take responsibility and not buy unhealthy food for their kids. I'd say children up to a certain age are drinking this stuff simply because their parents bought it for them (How else?). Plus, "when they target children" would simply become harder to define as companies would modify their ads, but the problem would remain if parents aren't taking an active role in educating their children themselves as to what is unhealthy, and making purchasing decisions that are healthy, instead of depending on the government (or corporate advertising) to do it for them.
- kachnuv_ocasek 11y agoKids can buy whatever they want if they have money. And surely, they'll buy the shiny thing thing they saw on TV or the internet when they encounter it in the shop and see it's cheap.
- ScottWhigham 11y agoWhen it comes to "Where do children get their food while at home?", I think it's fair to say they get 90+% of it from "Whoever does the grocery shopping".
- PKop 11y agoAgain, kids won't do "whatever they want" if their parents do their job and instill proper discipline, education, and consequences for behavior that they don't want. If you want the government to do your parenting for you, I don't know what to tell you. Not my idea of good parenting, and I think the results will be disappointing. We can agree to disagree on that.
- littletimmy 11y agoThe government is not doing "parenting". It is protecting from manipulation. Big difference.
- wpietri 11y ago> Again, kids won't do "whatever they want" if their parents do their job and instill proper discipline, education, and consequences for behavior that they don't want. Clearly you aren't a parent, and I suspect you also have never been a child. It would be handy if what you wrote were true. But children aren't robots, and parents aren't the only people who influence them. The reason that food companies target children in their advertising is that it works to manipulate them.