Shedding light on the marketing of junk food to children

Shedding light on the marketing of junk food to children

Imagine, if you will, a big pile of money. Let’s call it a million dollars. It’s all yours to spend, any way you want. What would you buy? An hour later you get another million to spend. Now what would you do with that money? How about if you got another million dollars an hour later — and kept it up around the clock, all year long? Well, now imagine that deluge of money aimed right at our kids — spent convincing them to eat and drink more and more of the foods and beverages that are least healthy for them. That’s how much money the food and beverage industry in the U.S. spends to reach our children with their messages. One million dollars an hour, every hour of every day, targeted at children and youth. It adds up to $10 to $12 billion dollars a year spent on youth marketing alone. Marketing to children needs to be abolished because it is endangering children’s lives and is extremely out of control.
Marketing to children has helped to contribute to the decline in the health of children. Since 1980, overweight rates have doubled among children and tripled among adolescents. According to the National Center for Chronic Disease more than one out of every three U.S. children born in 2000 is expected to get diabetes in their lifetime.. According to the CDC, among overweight children between 5 and 10 years of age, 60 percent already have at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor that can lead to atherosclerosis, hypertension, and diabetes in adulthood. (CDC,2004) This is particularly critical because, as a recent study confirmed, development of Type 2 diabetes before age 20 leads to a high risk of kidney disease and death by middle age. (Pavkov ME et al., 2006) Today’s generation of children is the first in modern history that is expected to have