Junk food TV ads and obese kids

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but where I live there seem to be an awful lot of super-sized kids wheezing their way up and down the sidewalk. Usually they're on a short walk to their parents' SUV, which will take them to closest fast food joint for another 1,000 calorie snack. Then it's back home for a few hours of relaxation in front of the tube. Ah, the joys of childhood in 21st century America.

Once settled in front of the electronic hearth, the average American child is in for a real treat: hours of advertisements for sugary cereal, candy and fast food. As reported today in The New York Times, the numbers are shocking: children between the age of 8 and 12 -- known as 'tweens' in ad-speak -- see over 20 ads for food products every day, which is over 7,600 per year. The vast majority of those ads are for junk food. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that half of all TV ads are for food, and the vast majority of the food ads are for products like sweetened cereals, potato chips and candy bars. Only 4% of ads aimed at kids are for dairy products, and no ads are for fruit and vegetables.

The massive corporations that produce the junk food and the ads that sell them are claiming to be concerned. Last year, a number of companies -- including PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP), Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) and McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) -- agreed to make healthy foods and a healthy lifestyle the subject of half of their advertising aimed at kids. The new rules are, of course, completely voluntary. It's a good question whether such self-policing will have much an impact. (Hey, self-regulation works for the oil industry, right?)

Another question is: why do we allow advertising to kids under 12 at all? The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for a total ban on junk food ads for kids, and most countries in Europe ban or at least limit such advertising. I know, I know -- they're a bunch of dirty socialists. The Free Market must have access to our children, 24 hours a day. Limiting Ronald McDonald's right to sell milkshakes to 12 year-olds would be like putting handcuffs on Uncle Sam. So the let the ads continue, and sit back and enjoy the spectacle of an ever-expanding national waistline.