How our tax dollars subsidize corporate marketing so kids can smoke, eat junk food, and hate themselves
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010Recently we’ve seen an increase in impending government legislation created to protect children.
For example, the Healthy Media for Youth Act was recently introduced in Congress. The bill would create media literacy programs, promote research on the effect of media images on kids, and encourage the adoption of voluntary guidelines to promote healthier media images of girls and women. The bill was developed in collaboration with the Girl Scouts.
Next, the Food and Drug Administration (with its newfound authority) has issued rules restricting tobacco industry marketing and sales to youth. Nice timing, considering that we just learned how the RJ Reynolds’ pink Camel No. 9 campaign targeted young teenage girls.
The rules, which take effect on June 22, will ban all remaining tobacco-brand sponsorships of sports/entertainment events; address outdoor tobacco advertising near schools and playgrounds; and restrict tobacco ads to black-and-white text only in publications that teens read and at point-of-sale.
Then there’s the newly formed Task Force on Childhood Obesity, made up of the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Education. It has recently requested comments to inform upcoming policy decisions.
The official Presidential Memo directs the Task Force to focus on four issues: ensuring access to healthy, affordable food; increasing physical activity in schools and communities; providing healthier food in schools; and empowering parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families.
Childhood obesity concerns have also prompted the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which directs the Department of Agriculture to set new nutrition standards for food served in schools, including vending machine offerings. The current laws are almost thirty years old.
Finally, the Federal Trade Commission is requesting comments on its reevaluation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Among other things, COPPA governs what information companies can collect online from children under age 13. Changes in technology and how children use the internet and social media prompted the review.
That’s a lot of legislation and it’s all essentially designed to protect kids from corporate marketing. I truly wish all this legislation wasn’t necessary. But we know that allowing industry self-regulation doesn’t work and that corporations are not going to do much more on their own. Not when they can continue to profit from recruiting brand ambassadors.
And remember, while Washington is spending our tax dollars creating task forces and legislative actions and holding press conferences and gathering comments? Corporations continue to deduct their advertising and marketing expenses from their federal taxes.
So essentially, our tax dollars pay for the ads that sell tobacco and junk food and promote unhealthy body images to our kids.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Read also: Jill Richardson’s Behind the Shady World of Marketing Junk Food to Children and Lousy School Lunch Bill, One Step Closer to Passage and Michele Simon’s Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move – Will it Move Industry?
Image courtesy ex_magician
