Really? Sue Davies:
"With so many parents fed up with the amount of marketing aimed at
their children, it also makes commercial sense for cartoon brands to
distance themselves from unhealthy food products. Regulation should be
put in place to protect children from all forms of irresponsible
marketing of unhealthy foods, whether it’s TV advertising, packaging,
free gifts or websites."
You mean like the last set of regulations? That ban advertising Marmite but allow that for McDonalds?
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But what about children learning early in life how to say no?
I don’t hold with this belief that everything ‘unhealthy’ etc should be hidden from the gaze of children. Surely it’s better for children to know that these unhealthy foods are out there, but that there is such a thing as eating responsibly and healthily. Instead of hiding all the so-called junk foods from children, why not teach them how to exercise their judgement?
If you hide from children’s gaze every single bit of temptation, what happens when they get older and come across even worse forms of temptation? Having never exercised their powers of choice and judgement, they wouldn’t even know where to start.
I rather like the way it makes commercial sense so government must act.
Not even attempting to claim its a market failure but saying that companies cannot make commercial decisions for themselves!
Christ, I watched tonnes of adverts as a kid and I grew up alright. The reason? My parents didn’t surrender to my every whim. And thank God too, some of the Christmas presents I wanted – as a consequence of said adverts – were pretty poor choices. I’d hate to have made similar decisions with my health and they didn’t let me. It’s yet another instance of people trying to buck responsibility from themselves up to the government. The problem is that the government is almost always happy to take it because of the power that comes attendent with it.
‘Parents should be put in place to protect children ……’ And this applies to more than advertising – take booze, fags, etc.
Are there really that many parents “fed up with the amount of marketing aimed at their children”? It never bothered us, we’ve had four kids, three now grown adults plus our precious laat lammetjie, and I can honestly say that not one of them has ever persuaded us to give them something to eat that we did not approve of. We are not food fanatics, believing that the key is balance and none of our children are overweight. So-called junk food is nutritious in modest amounts.
If there really are parents who cannot say no to their children and think that denying people the right to advertise their perfectly legal products is necessary to save them from themselves, then someone should give them a gentle smack (apparently it is permissible to smack the immature) and tell them to grow up, start acting like adults and treating their children like children. Our children learnt very early that we were the dispensers of treats and nagging for them only delayed the next one.
As for the rest of us, we should get angry with the likes of Sue Davies who wants to regulate on the premise that all parents are morons. If enough people tell these people to butt out, may be they’ll get the message, though don’t bank on it.
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