American children are suffering from and epidemic of marketing- and food-related diseases, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Today, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released its recommendations on marketing to children. Alas, they read like a kindergarten teacher wagging a finger at a wayward kid. They propose only voluntary measures. This is not a way to get tough with the food industry.
The food industry likes voluntary measures, because they are ineffective.
With “advocacy” like this, no wonder our children are in trouble.
The marketing of junk food to children should be illegal. Parents and children deserve the right to be let alone. There is no reason why corporations should have more rights than parents to influence our own children.
Our nation’s children need us to stand up for them. They need us to stand up to the commercial speech doctrine, and to say that children are more important than the first amendment rights of corporations.
