This story was in our papers yesterday - the degree to which the junk food industry targets kids, spending $1.6 billion in 2006; soda ads alone accounted for $492 million.
And so we have several FTC recommendations, in resposne to the report:
- Media and entertainment companies should limit the licensing of characters to healthier foods and drinks.
- Schools should adopt meaningful nutrition standards for the foods sold there, and companies should end all in-school promotion of products that don’t meet such standards.
- Companies that market food and drinks to children should expand public-outreach efforts to educate children about the importance of healthy eating and exercise, with particular attention aimed at minority populations that are disproportionately affected by childhood obesity.
What’s missing here? Right, how about this:
Parents should restrict the amount of krep their kids ingest.
All the usual disclaimers; there are a great many kids who have little effective parental oversight, and in such cases yes, the government bears a moral responsibility to protect those kids. But come on. No matter how much Coca-Cola spends on advertising geared towards kids, most kids are only going to drink Coke on a regular basis when they are permitted to do so.
The story laments, among other things, “promotional displays at grocery stores.” Which of course leads to the “Mom, mom, I want that!!!” But again, there’s a way to counter this without having to get the government involved: It’s called “no.”
This seems to be the theme around here this week: Government to the rescue, and should government really be leaping to the rescue?
It stands to reason that if we’re on the cusp of what we might call a resurgence of liberalism - Congress being Democratic, the real prospect of an Obama presidency and the continued disarray of the Republican Party - then we’ll see more of this. And as I always say, in some instances it will be warranted. Kids are impressionable. Minority populations may indeed be more susceptible, for a variety of reasons.
Capitalism, for all its successes and efficiencies, does claim its victims.
But as we’ve been saying all week long, you don’t have to be a victim. And if people finally decide that they’re not going to be - governmental regulation, or at least broad regulation, becomes less necessary. Why should the government be worrying about what my kid watches on TV when I can turn it off myself? Same goes for video games; my kid plays them, but he doesn’t play the shoot-em up violent ones, and he won’t (right, sure, maybe at a friend’s house, but on a regular basis: Nope).
And, omigod, what are they seeing on teh internets??? Except, you know, you can monitor that, too. I know this sounds radical - but - you could have the computer in a very public area of your home, where at any moment you might look over your child’s shoulder to see what he or she is up to.
Oh, right. Your child wants one in his/her room. And, you know, parents have to respect kids’ “privacy.”
Nonsense.
What power we have - over our children, over ourselves. What authority. Would that we all exercised it, rather than waiting around for the government to do so on our behalf.
Again, if we are on the edge of a new age of liberalism, this is a discussion we’re going to be having again and again. Government may indeed need to do some things in the coming years to foster the public good. But private individuals also bear a responsibility to that public good - and maybe more of one.
