Jim Stewart wrote:
>>> Self-regulation in food and beverage marketing is being exploited and
>>> is failing to curb childhood obesity, research by a global obesity
>> It's easy to blame the media (and now the Internet) for social
> problems, but I don't buy it.
>> I find that hard to believe. I question the influence of solely
> advertising on obesity because: 1) all sorts of junk food has been
> aggressively advertised on TV and print for 50 years yet this obesity
> problem is recent and 2) they took cigarette ads off TV years ago but
> smoking remained popular for a long time afterwards 3) they never
> advertised hard liquor on TV but it is a growing youth problem and 4)
> they don't advertise illegal drugs at all on TV but it's a problem.
> I suspect there are other factors involved, specifically the wholesale
> replacement of sugar with high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener.
> There are a couple of studies that implicate corn syrup as being more
> addictive and more harmful than cane or beet sugar. I know personally
> that I can drink a glass of sugar-sweetened lemonade and not want
> another. OTOH, a glass of corn syrup lemonade will just cause me to
> crave more.
> Then there's the whole transfat thing too ...
> Of course it has nothing at all to do with many parents not letting
> wanting kids to "just play". They want it structured, planned, and
> coordinated. So when at home with free time the only things to do are
> TV and video games. Many parents don't want their kids playing around
> the neighborhood. After all aren't 1000s of kids being abducted every
> hour?
Give me a break.
We have a baseball field in a city park 3 blocks from my house in a
fairly nice suburban area. It's deserted most of the time except for
organized team play. When I was young we moved the cow pasture about
the same distance away to have a field to use. My kids tell me the
neighbors don't want to play outside. :)
I never blame the TV or mass media for what my kids do. If there was
an influence it was my fault for allowing it. Period. But many folks
are no longer willing to sacrifice their way of life to raise their
kids properly. I'm guilty to some degree but I did do two things.
We dropped cable while the kids were in elementary school.
No video games in the house. (And I'm a confirmed video game addict.)
David
(Father of 2 teens.)
DLR (news23@raleighthings.com)