Katy calls for junk food ad ban

My research has found that 35% of all uncited research is absolute bollocks, with a further 15-25% being misrepresented.

Research has found that processed meats contribute to cancer…but anyway.

I consider bread and corn to be on the list of ‘healthy’ products – just saying is all…

GnT disclaimed – in moderation. Eat sufficient amounts of anything* and you’ll turn into something.

** Disclaimer **
Except tofu, tofu was created by the Devil for a specific purpose.

Haha…& you’ve come up with an equal amount of credible evidence GnT. Do 5 minutes of research & you’ll find what’s contained in McNuggets…I reckon the only place you’ll find that claims they are actually healthy will be Maccas themselves. If the internet as a whole doesn’t convince you then talk to a nutritionist, naturapath or even your GP. In the end…you can choose to eat them/feed them to your kids, I’ll choose not to…easy! I bet I know who’ll be healthier.

Chicken McNuggets contain “quality chicken breast meat (the best bits) from Ingham and Steggles”.

Sure, this information comes from McDonalds themselves, but I’m not a conspiracy theorist. Where’s your information from?

I still don’t know what your definition of “unhealthy” is. Is it the amount of processing? Is it how much bread and corn it contains? Is it the amount of preservatives?

So far the only evidence you’ve come up with is “They’re just not”.

> Healthy? – yeah, in moderation

Sure….it won’t actually kill you (in a hurry) if you eat the odd McNugget, but it’s not “healthy”..not even at a stretch.

Calling them “chicken” for a start, is an overstatement. Yes, there’s chicken in them…..but there’s a hell of a lot of fillers, fats, bread & corn in there too. They’re heavily processed, full of preservatives & fat & really, not much else.

Eat them..sure. But don’t try & call them healthy. They’re just not.

Exactly. My problem is with your definition, or lack thereof.

Chicken nuggets are an excellent source of essential nutrients such as protein and vitamin B. Frying in vegetable oil limits the amount of saturated fat. Served with some fruit and dairy provides a balanced meal. Healthy? – yeah, in moderation.

You’ve totally confused me with that question Maelinar.

But justbands, you think it is reasonable that non smokes and beer companies have a marketing bonus during the childrens timeslot by the forced absence of a legitimate competitor. Or are you taking back what you said at 1:21pm ?

> By the way, the highest fat and energy item in the happy meal is the cup of milk. Would you call milk junk food?

No, I wouldn’t. The milk isn’t deep fried though. Are you trying to tell me that chicken nuggets are healthy???

& personally speaking….I wouldn’t eat a homemade spag bol either. 🙂

RE: Weet-bix. Actually, they’re pretty good (although unprocessed stuff such as rolled oats or a natural muesli are better). I did specifically mention coco pops & fruit loops as the type of ones I was talking about though.

I could give my kid a happy meal with 3 nuggets, a bag of apple slices and a cup of milk, which has around 1500 kJ and 20 g fat. Or I could serve a homemade spaghetti bolognaise for 2800 kJ and 33 g fat.

By the way, the highest fat and energy item in the happy meal is the cup of milk. Would you call milk junk food?

I can also buy my kids weet-bix for breakfast, which is marketed at kids. Junk food?

> Naturally by your logic, the Wiggles will start a campaign to ensure that Australian made childrens entertainment is the only entertainment advertising to be screened during childrens hour, giving themselves the marketing bonus over their foreign competitors.

How do you make the leap from me not supporting the idea of ads for smokes & beer during kids TV time slots & me supporting this rubbish? That’s YOUR logic mate, not mine. You should think about what you type before you click “Say it!”. Maybe checking your facts would help too (eg. legislated kids tv times). Anyway…you want your kids to come running in yelling “Daddy! Daddy! I want a packet of Winfield Reds just like Bozo the clown told me!”, then you’re obviously a fool. We live in a world that has reasonable restrictions, some of them I’ll concede are over the top…but most are perfectly just. If you think that messes with our right to “free speech”, then go live in a country that actually has that right. I’m staying right here.

> Define “junk food”..? For example, muesli bars, breakfast cereal, crackers, fruit bars, ice-cream, anzac biscuits, peanut butter, subway, macca’s happy meals with a fruit bag and milk. All these things I consider borderline, or nutritious in moderation.

Happy meals are junk food, fruit bag or not (chicken nuggets or cheesburgers!). Most fruit bars are junk food, as is most breaky cereal advertised to kids (coco pops, fruit loops, etc) which is mostly sugar & nothing else.

But why waste time and money enforcing such a silly law, Sepi? Advertising Execs. are not stupid people, they’ll find some loophole some way – then what are you left with? A whole bunch of useless red tape.

Morally it’s stupid as well. We live in a society that often blindly punishes those whom fail to take responsibility for their actions in a legal sense, why should we be substituting people’s responsibilities in a domestic sense?

sHOULD IT BE legal to market to the insane? Guns maybe Or to the retarded? Pyramid schemes praps?

There is no god given right to advertise.

The ban on junk food advertising focuses on the ‘advertising to children’ part. not the food. so advertising food with cartoon characters is not allowed.

No-one who has declared support for the ban has responded to my first issue. Define “junk food”..? For example, muesli bars, breakfast cereal, crackers, fruit bars, ice-cream, anzac biscuits, peanut butter, subway, macca’s happy meals with a fruit bag and milk. All these things I consider borderline, or nutritious in moderation.

In this way a junk food advertising ban is completely different from tobacco or alcohol advertising.

johnboy’s comment has certainly given me pause, and made me carefully consider my position on this. I’m in favour of free speech, yet I find the use of advertising to manipulate children to be unethical.

After careful consideration, I’ve decided that I’m not unconditionally opposed to restraints on all speech after all. In particular, the philosophy I am leaning towards is that whilst there should be no prior restraints on free speech among adults, speech aimed at minors may need to be restricted.

The way I resolved this was by looking at your “I don’t like it, but that’s not good enough reason to ban it” argument, and in that light considering the advertising as being analogous to porn. I don’t like it, but I would strongly resist attempts to ban adults from making or accessing it; on the other hand, it seems entirely appropriate to prevent porn from being shown to children.

As long as position is that free speech among adults is sacrosanct, the threat to political speech seems to be avoided. Is that not your principle objection?

I still have one inconvenient issue to resolve, by the way. That’s the (long standing) ban on the advertising of medical drugs – instinctively I support it, but I acknowledge that it doesn’t fit with my stated philosophy.

3 post nutbag.

My personal opinion is they can advertise all they like as long as they are willing to pay the dosh and be market competitive. – that was my answer.

I disagree on the issue that legitimate competition is being unfairly restricted, but since I’m apathetic I’m not bothered.

Naturally by your logic, the Wiggles will start a campaign to ensure that Australian made childrens entertainment is the only entertainment advertising to be screened during childrens hour, giving themselves the marketing bonus over their foreign competitors.

It’s all good in your books, you think it’s perfectly reasonable, the world isn’t about marketing thankfully…

> Do you think it reasonable that non smokes and beer companies have a marketing bonus during aforementioned timeslot by the forced absence of a legitimate competitor ?

& yes, I think that’s perfectly reasonable. The world isn’t about marketing, thankfully.

Oh & by the way…..times for childrens tv programs actually ARE legislated.

You didn’t answer my question, stop talking bollocks. Do you think it’s OK for smokes & beer to be advertised during childrens TV shows?

& the fact is that there really is certain times of day that are dominated by TV aimed at children. ..legislated or not. Theories of putting kids cartoons on at 2am are completely irrelevant. Let’s talk about reality, reality is the place we live in.

To clarify; I never said Australia was going nazi, I was making a comparison to the propoganda engine.

My personal opinion is they can advertise all they like as long as they are willing to pay the dosh and be market competitive.

Do you think it reasonable that non smokes and beer companies have a marketing bonus during aforementioned timeslot by the forced absence of a legitimate competitor ?

Particularly given that a childrens cartoon hour isn’t a legislated item and is administered by self-governance – therefore if childrens cartoon hour was relocated to 1-2am in the morning, they could publicise all the smokes and drinks advertising they wanted while playing M*A*S*H during breakfast ?

Hmmm…so you’d be OK with ads for smokes & beer on TV during childrens cartoons hour? Or ads for Jim Beam in magazines aimed at teenagers? We already have some media control…& rightly so. I hardly think that some restrictions on junk food advertising is some slippery slide down towards a Nazi Australia.

My comment was not strictly about free speech, it is more relevant in the context of Governmental censoring of media that it decides is not in its own interest.

Although it falls under the wider banner of ‘free speech’, propoganda controls by the Government in any form isn’t a cool thing.

Justbands is correct, we do not have a right to freedom of speech.
We have a freedom of political communication, but its only implied through context and content.

Marketing direct to children is ethically incorrect, they do not have the social and psychological faculties to recognise blatant untruths (EG: this meal will make you happy, this product will make you popular etc etc – as someone mentioned before, they take things at face value) the way adults do.

The childhood obesity crisis is multi-faceted though. It’s not just advertising, it’s also parental responsibility, peer pressure and a raft of other factors. However I support a ban on direct marketing at children for junk food products because it is one thing we can control that will have a positive impact.

Over and above this though – i think I get riled up because I find marketing in itself a completely abhorrent career based on telling people they need a product to make them happy and that they they are constantly incomplete, in order to keep the capitalist machine chugging over. Mongrels.

OK Maelinar….do you compare the ban on cigarette advertising with Nazi propoganda in the same way? Really…get a grip.

Oh..& while you’re reading up on history….spare some time to read a little about our constitution. We don’t have “freedom of speech” in this country in the first place.

“If you go with the ‘fast food’ label you can define it – easily available pre-packaged food eg. packs of chips, maccas and deep fried foods.”

Easily available, pre-packaged food. Better ban those apples then. Blimey, you can even eat their packaging, they must be really evil!

How is a comment regarding the machinations of the propoganda machine baseless, when compared to the most famous propoganda campaign ever run ?

Because of some law I only heard about 30 mins ago or just googled to suit my purposes ?

Gee, stunning stuff. Some of you people might do well to actually read some of those dusty books marked History lying about the place, you can learn a lot of things from them, like not making the same f-ck up over and over.

> Correction: One person was comparing junk food advertising controls to the Nazis.

True, yes. There’s still a lot of comments whinging about the junk food ad ban though. Personally, I think there’s far, far more important things to whinge about. The ban on smoking ads is just normal now, I can’t see why it would be any different with junk food.

Fast food wasn’t the Aryan ideal? I thought goose-stepping would be a great way to burn off all those extra kilos!

If there aren’t any obese kids to mock at school, then who will the normal kids pick on instead?

Correction: One person was comparing junk food advertising controls to the Nazis. At which point all accrued credibility in this thread was lost that person.
Such is the wonder of Godwin’s Law.

Geez…you lot can get worked up about the strangest things. Comparing a junk food advertising ban/controls with Hitler & the Nazis? Common, that’s drawing a very long bow. Fact is…we live in a time that rates of childhood obesity are skyrocketing. Fact is….the fast food joints DO target their ads directly at kids, both in the style of ads & in the times & channels they put them on. Fact is…loads of parents don’t have the brains/skills to feed their kids proper healthy food. So depsite all the calls of “parents should just do better”, fact is…a lot of them just won’t & they really do need all the help they can get. There’s a direct link to lower socio-economic groups/areas & lower standards of education with rates of obesity.

I guess you all complained loudly when they banned ads for ciggies too hey? Is that another Nazi policy?

As an aside….did you know that the numbers of adult men in Australia that are obese increased from 12% in 1995 to nearly 25% in 2005? Frigging lard ar$es…lay of the burgers yourselves & stop complaining when someone tries to do something about the same thing happening to a generation of kids.

What about introducing a hamburger tax – then all the fat bastards can pay the extra dollars and fund the health system a bit more.

Dammit, Maelinar! Godwins Law! Shush!

If you bring your children up intelligently enough they will eventually be able to make up there own mind.

Define advertising to children. I am yet to see a disclaimer that notes that this advert is solely for the purpose of those under 10.

The only thing that comes even remotely close is that go-to-bed-possum thing on the telly.

As has been already implied, a ban on freedom of speech is a step along the path made famous by the German Nazi party circa 1940.

Does the government even exist? I’ve never seen Rudd in person…

You’re right Deadman. I can’t see them either! Maybe they aren’t there after all. How would we know anyway?!! It’s only because they tell us there’s a gaping hole up there!! Tell them to prove it!! Do you think maybe they’re lying to us??!!
No! Our government would never do that…

Even better idea – teach the parents to turn the f*cking TV OFF.

If you go with the ‘fast food’ label you can define it – easily available pre-packaged food eg. packs of chips, maccas and deep fried foods.

It doesn’t worry me if they ban the advertising. Same as I didn’t care when they banned advertising of cigarettes.

Define junk food.

Is it food with high fat content, in which case take a look at fancy resteraunts with half a bucket of cream in every bit of mash.

It’s like anything, eat it in moderation.

Better off spending the money on educating parents on how to say no to their kids.

Lazy parents want someone eles to do their job. That said, I can’t see anything wrong with banning fast food ads (other than defining what is fast food and what is not, and the precedent that would set).

Yes, Bigdave, global warming is ALL A MYTH!

Can you see the holes in the ozone layer? I can’t, I’ve been looking at the sky for hours!

I support banning Deadmandrinking from breathing. Should be a fantastic contribution to climate change, global warming and any other bullshit tag the scaremongers can come up with.

And when the jack-booted throng have banned all the advertising they find inconvenient who else’s speech will they ban?

Advertising is speech people.

Ban it at your own peril.

We can regulate it all we like but it’s not what’d making the kids fat.

High sugar diets, restricted exercise (hello sensational media scaring parents), and crap parenting are to blame but it’s easier to pass a law and ban summin’

I don’t like advertising to children. But I probably don’t like you either. A law banning something based on our likes and dislikes is almost guaranteed to be a piss poor law.

And it’s not banning junk-food, arsewipe, it’s banning the advertising.

Geez.

Correction: I only support banning BigDave from junk food…and cars.

Ride, tubs, ride.

Oh yes Katy, a junk food ban. That’ll work. Stupid fat bitch.

Now that all the social engineers have finished in Bali and achieved the square root of f*ck all apart from raising smugness to new heights (“I was there!!”) the hippies will be screeching for something else to control.

Kev07 fortunately hasn’t bowed to their wishes so the climate god, Al, may take a back seat for while. But, there has to be a cause to follow.

So, watch out all you fat bastards who don’t live off lettuce.

And soon they’ll want to stop masturbation on public transport!

Yep. Where is the need to advertise to under 10s.

And I don’t see an underground market for kiddie junkfood ads.

The problem with saying “This is the wrong solution, instead the parents need to harden up” is twofold: firstly it doesn’t say anything about HOW you propose to get the parents to harden up; and secondly it ignores the fact that we (as a society) don’t even want the kids of irresponsible parents to become little fatties if we can help it. I think it’s long on rhetoric and short on solutions.

Banning junkfood would be obviously silly; but regulating the targeting of advertising against young children who are not fully developed mentally seems sensible enough. Preferably this would be done through some sort of voluntary industry code, but the big stick of legislation could be brought out if it had to be.

I got nothing against Katy. I just disagree with her on this particular issue.

I’m sick of people expecting society to raise their children. The wasting of money and time in the public eye that could have been better spent on important issues pisses me off. So McShitburgers markets food to kids. Who buys them for the kids? The parents. If they don’t know how to say ‘no’ to their children, then they’re the problem.

This little peeve of mine relates to the bigger issue of my ire – the time-wasting culture-warriors. You know them, the army of Mary Whitehouse clones whom are up in arms about books, movies, t.v., food companies, playgrounds, swimming pools, the government and just about everyone else not doing their housework for them or something.

If you cannot say no to your children, supervise your children or let them take a few risks, you are not suitable to be a parent. Plain and bloody simple.

Its not ‘okay’ in that we like it and support it, but its an option that people\advertisers are going to use (legal or not) as its been proven to be effective at meeting whatever end they’re after.
So we either tolerate it (for free) or spend lots of money keeping people in created jobs to drive the perpetarors underground and they still won’t stop.

Analogue this to any other form of behaviour modification through legislation re: exploitation you like.

In the old days advertisers rarely targetted kids directly given the limited discretionary spend afforded by a few bob pocket money or a paper round – then later they realised that the discretionary spend of kiddies was infact much larger because it was being bankrolled by their parents – and ‘pester power’ advertising was born.

Kids are basically fat because their parents let them eat too many high energy foods FFS and arn’t phased if they spend the waking hours on the plump little butts in front of the telly. It’s not rocket surgery.

It’s not okay, but the advertisers have realised that spoilt little monsters are able to wield a great deal of power over their weak parents, so that’s why they are targeted by advertisments.

Why is it OK to advertise to kids under 8 or 10 anyway?

She’s a slack witch, who has never taken any responsibility for any of the numerous cockups she’s made in all the portfolios she’s ever held.

Is that explanatory enough for you?

What has she ever done to you ?? Why the hate towards Katy Gallagher ? Were you not able to get a date with her at High School ? I don’t see any issue.

There are too many people on this planet anyway, so who really gives a toss if some fat, lard-arsed wobble-bottomed children have heart attacks and die while stuffing another BigMac down their gullet.

I just wished they take Part-Time Gallagher with them!

Barking toad, stop embarassing decent smokers and drinkers…

Cutting fuel emmissions is completely different to irritating smokers. You should know that.

I guess its a good thing they don’t call it “weather change” then.

> I looked out the window – didn’t notice any weather in any difficulty.

Really? How scientific!

“..environment is struggling..”

I looked out the window – didn’t notice any weather in any difficulty.

And I’m so pleased that I’m off for one with the lot washed down with a shitload of schooners, the guzzling of which will only be interrupted by long drags on cigars.

mmm tanks.

Yeah….right on barking toad! I mean, it’s not like smoking kills you, or alcohol abuse is a big problem, or that our environment is struggling, or that we’re turning into a mob of fat bast&rd heart attacks waiting to happen or….oh, hang on…

Well the social engineers have had their way with smoking and tried to control how we hammer the piss.

They’re using the weather to try and stop us from driving cars and using electricity and breathing but this stopping the weather changing business is getting a bit hard.

So, now they’ve latched onto eating – “you must eat what I say or the world will end!”

Farking hippies.

Lived in Charnwood as kid. I not was permit to go too scool as my parants not believe in. I never had any issues with diet thow. I been fed good pet food with excerciseing allways ok. I know fat i no thow socialy ok I find lot of influence of bad you know.

Yes, the advertising is cunning and evil. And parents who don’t raise their kids to have respect for the rules that the parents set, get everything they deserve, and inflict on the rest of us some really unpleasant kids. I wonder what kind of adults they’ll become?

It’s not as simple as that. Caf is right, esp for young children who take things at face value. Basically the kids are psychologically trained to feel good about McDonalds, nothing to do with food, it’s a Pavlovian response. This is why they chose images to appeal to tots instead of images of say cars or beautiful women for older markets. Coke does the same thing with those images for the youth market. Google ‘advertising emotional transference’ for more.

Don’t take your bloody children to Macca’s every day, for Christ’s sake! Problem solved.

Sure some guy ate it for a month straight or something and got really bad health problems – but, f-k, if you do that, you deserve it.

Kids get fat when you FEED them too much. The answer to childhood obesity is so bloody simple, it hurts.

Would the beer be green?

I have no problem syaing no to my kids when it comes to crap food – it’s me that can’t resist. Beer and chips … mmmmmmm, and when was the last time you saw an add for beer and chips?

Yeah, but this pie-in-the-sky crap takes the heat off Katy and her piss poor management of the local health system…….

God I’m cynical! 🙂

Advertising, inasfar as it is psychological manipulation, can certainly stand to be better regulated in regards to children, who don’t have the same level of psychological defences as adults.

Too much time on the baby, not enough time reading important documents Katy.

Yes, think of the children; ban everything bad, and don’t expect them to develop any form of self-control, eh Katy.