Unscrupulous marketing practices

I am starting my very first blog posting with a subject that ranks high on my list of pet peeves. That would be the DISGUSTING practice of marketing GARBAGE (disguised in the form of "food") to children. Researches now say that we could be the first generation of people whose children may not outlive us. WHAT?? Can you get your head around that? When one begins to do the research and delve into the specifics of a claim like that some viable arguments for that statement begin to emerge. Children are succumbing to a laundry list of diseases and ailments (once associated with adults/aging) at an alarming rate. Not the least of which are high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes (yes I AM aware that type 2 IS "adult onset"), morbid obesity, multiple chemical sensitivity, rheumatoid arthritis, elevated cholesterol, kidney stones, cancer, and various mental disorders. I have by NO means covered everything but it's a start. Plus, let us not forget that if a lable cannot be found for what ails your child...a diagnosis and a drug to accompany it are only a click away! Is there a website where your doctor can quickly run to his office and log into "inventanewsyndrome" (and it probably has a .gov on the end of it), and type in your childs symptoms? Junior now has a diagnosis: "Accute Mathmatic Aversion Syndrome" accompanied by Narcalepcy and IBS. One more click populates a list of suggested medications to prescribe and the percentage of kickback from the drug company is displayed so Mr. Md. can choose the most personally lucrative poison to dispense. How about this answer instead. Junior doesn't like math class because he is perpetually behind and doesn't understand the material. He has a poptart and a coke on the way to school so his brain has not received anything that it can acutally USE. His body is experiencing the typical post-sugar consumption crash so he nods off. He is jolted awake by a pain in his stomach and spends the remainder of the class in the bathroom or the nurses office with a stomach ache because the caramel coloring (which is an excitotoxin) in the soda has made it to his bloodstream and poisoned him. How did things get this way? CHILDREN GET WHAT THEY WANT AND THEY WANT WHAT THEY SEE! Parents give in because they can't compete with an industry that spends multi-millions of dollars a year to recruit consumers. I am reminded of a statment by Adolf Hitler (I can't quote it exactly without looking it up) that said, "Give me a child till he is seven years old and I'll have his loyalty/allegience for life" Pardon the paraphrase. Our children are innundated from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close them at night with advertising that is purposfully and maliciously TARGETED at them. We made child labor laws to stop unscrupulous employers from using children for cheap labor how long ago??? Why can't we do the same with unscrupulous food manufacturers and the ruthless marketing firms they employ? European countries have done it, and continue to take aim at more and more questionable advertisment. Get your panties out of their wad please because I am NOT suggesting sensorship of first amendment rights to "free speech." I am suggesting respecting HUMAN RIGHTS of individuals who are too young and uneducated to make choices about their health. Parents...educate yourself please! Would you let Johnny or Susie drink ethynol? Of course not. Would you let them eat Coal Tar, ground up beetle carcuses, arsenic, synthetic estrogen, neurotoxins, mercury, phtalates (plastic particles) ? Well..guess what? YOU ARE! This is not secret stuff that only "insiders" know. It's readily available to any lay person. You just have to read it. You also have to take charge and say NO to their requests. Start when they are young and always be prepared with healthy alternatives. If you keep them full of nutritious, high density foods there will be less room (and therefore less desire) for tater tots.