Opinion
Amelia Freidline, Copy Editor Anyone who’s been paying attention should know this, but kids and what they eat — or should and shouldn’t be eating — are hot-button issues.
In 2010, first lady Michelle Obama unveiled her Let’s Move program with the goal of ending childhood obesity within a generation.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2008, more than 30% of U.S. kids and adolescents were overweight or obese.
Letsmove.gov says one-third of all children born in 2000 or later will have diabetes at some point in their lives if obesity rates stay the same.
Change for the better
The fresh produce industry, of course, hasn’t been idle in making sure kids have more access to fruits and vegetables in school meals.
Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools, of which the Washington, D.C.-based United Fresh Produce Association is a founding partner, has granted more than 1,000 salad bars so far with a goal of 6,000 by the end of 2012, according to the group’s website.
And let’s not forget the long-awaited, much debated updates to school nutrition guidlines. The new rules, issued Jan. 25, double the amount of fruits and vegetables served to kids who participate in the School Lunch Program.
Last year saw an increase in apple slices and other fresh produce side options in fast-food kids meals. Darden Restaurants pledged that by July of this year, fruits or vegetables would become the default kids’ side dish in all of its 1,900 restaurants.
While those are all significant steps in the right direction, they only work if the amount of produce children eat stays the same or increases — and a lot of kids still eat plenty of junky food.
So what do we do about that?
Solution or problem?
A recent study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggests that banning junk-food advertising to kids could decrease the amount of fast food they eat.
The study, by professor of agricultural and consumer economics Kathy Baylis and her University of British Columbia collaborator Tirtha Dhar, examined data from a Quebec junk food ad ban in 1984-92.
According to Baylis and Dhar, the ban cut money spent on fast food in French-speaking households by 13% per week. They estimated that meant a decrease of 11 million to 22 million fast food meals eaten per year, or 2.2 billion to 4.4 billion fewer calories consumed by kids, a mid-January university press release stated.
Based on these results, the authors suggest a U.S.-wide ban on kid-targeted junk food ads would be an effective means of curbing kids’ appetites for unhealthy fare.
That it might, but one big problem with the study is that it draws conclusions from data at least 20 years old.
The media and advertising environment is vastly different now — a fact that Baylis, to her credit, acknowledges.
“Obviously, the Internet has exploded since then, and computer games have also risen in popularity,” she said in the release.
“So we don’t know how well a television ban would work when children are spending an increasing amount of time online rather than watching TV.”
Voluntary guidelines setting nutrition standards for what foods companies can market to kids were stymied late last year in debate over the budget bill, according to an article in the Washington Post.
McDonald’s and Burger King, the second- and fourth-most popular U.S. fast food chains in 2011, according to Zagat, have websites geared to children that feature games and activites.
Both sport a line of text at the top that says “Hey kids, this is advertising.”
While I’m not excited about the idea of junk food commercials aimed at kids, it’s important to remember that they usually aren’t the ones buying food. That decision, influenced by kids as it may be, is ultimately up to the parents.
A 2012 poll by Majority Opinion Research asked more than 1,100 registered voters whether they thought childhood obesity was caused by poor parenting, poor food choices or both, or whether it was a disease. The majority (34%) answered poor parenting and poor food choices, with poor parenting (29%) in second place.
It’s important to teach kids how to make healthy meal choices, but let’s not forget their parents are the ones putting the food on the table.
Maybe they buy mac and cheese and chicken fingers because those are easy to fix.
Make sure they know your fresh produce is easy to prepare too.
What's your take? Leave a comment and tell us your opinion.
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