Imagine a childhood without Tony the Tiger or Toucan Sam, no Ronald MacDonald, or Hamburglar, or Mayor McCheese. What if ‘Mean’ Joe Green hadn’t had a coke and a smile, or if Mark Messier could have had just one? Did anyone ever solve the Caramilk secret?
According to a medical coalition, Canadian children 13 and younger shouldn’t be exposed to marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages.
Its aim is to reduce the increasing number of overweight children.
The Canadian Medical Association, Heart and Stroke Foundation, Hypertension Canada, College of Family Physicians of Canada and others are calling on food companies to immediately stop marketing foods high in fats, added sugars or sodium to children.
The groups say the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1989 that advertisers should not be able to capitalize upon children’s credulity and that advertising directed at young children is manipulative.
However, food companies in Canada, except in Quebec, are not required by law to restrict unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children.
So they spend billions of dollars marketing to kids because they know it works.
Up to 80 per cent of food advertising is for unhealthy food, according to reports. And 75 per cent of children today are overweight. That number has increased steadily over the past 30 years.
If a ban was enacted, restrictions would apply to TV, internet, radio, magazines, mobile phones, and video games, as well as product placement, cross-promotions, school or event sponsorships, and viral marketing.
The proposed advertising restriction includes characters or mascots promoting sugary cereals.
You could require more warning labels, or add a tax on such products, too, but doing the latter hasn’t stopped people from smoking or drinking.
In the end, parents have to stop buying their kids so much junk food, turn off the TV, take away the iPads, and make them go outside.
– Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News
