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This is Your Cap’n speaking
Chile has taken a hard stand against obesity. Chile for heaven’s sake! In the face of “skyrocketing obesity” the government of Chile’s hammer came down on the likes of Pepsico, Quaker Oats, Frito-Lay and Ferrero Rocher, to name a few food producers/processors. Chile is “waging war on unhealthy foods with a phalanx of marketing restrictions, mandatory packaging redesigns and labelling rules aimed at transforming the eating habits of 18 million people,” stated Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times. While it is frightening, it is also about time for the whole world to wake up to our First World eating disorders. In the past, I’ve been the person who suggested we shouldn’t be blaming the fast foods and snack foods industry for our weighty health problems. I actually implied no one was forcing us to make those purchases or dine on our unsavoury food decisions. Lots of people would have agreed with me. Chile, as a country, is handling their problem in a very aggressive, noholds- barred kind of way. Here in Canada, we’ve still got a big problem. We still allow big food corporations to make decisions with regard to something as important as our overall health. Many big healthcare foundations and charities are sponsored by companies more concerned with their bottom line than with the widening lines of our bottom
So, the Chilean government decided to do something about their hefty problems. The marketing of junk food to children has been banned completely. Additionally, there will no longer be any cute, cartoon characters on boxes or cans or bottles or bags or bars of empty calories. Products on shelves that are high in sugar, salt, calories and/or saturated fats, must now prominently display black warning labels that resemble the familiar STOP sign. Soon to be banned are any and all food-type advertisements aimed at children. No more two-hour sessions of Teen Titans, punctuated with Quaker Oats telling children how great a bowl of Cap’n Crunch would be for a healthy breakfast or snack. Within the year, all such food (ish) advertisements directed at children will be off the air between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. A kid would have to be up pretty late to get an eyeful of high-pressure cutesy marketing. Not only that, to encourage breastfeeding, this spring a ban will be put on any infant formula advertising. As most of us know, until the late 1980s, many Chilean children were considered to be malnourished—read underweight. Today, the country has acknowledged they have an obesity problem that, ironically, hasn’t really changed the fact that many of those children are still malnourished. Malnourished but obese. Hard to put those problems together in our minds.
But kiddies, look around. Our beautiful country is awash with the same problems that face Chile. Our children are still being lured into “pizza days” at their schools. One slice of pizza has 220 calories, 620 mg of sodium, 8 grams of total fat and about 3.5 grams of saturated fat. Our children are still selling donuts to fundraise for their sports teams. Each of those creamy, glazed donuts has 200 calories, 12 grams of partially hydrogenated soy bean fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 10 grams of sugar Our children are selling cookies to pay for their camping and educational trips. While the curriculum and the sports activity and the clubs are preaching to our children the sermon of healthy, active lifestyles, children are receiving mixed messages about what healthy really is when they are pressured sell those products—often to their own family members. I agree, donuts, pizza and cookies are all delicious. Fat and sugar will trick you that way. So too will the corporations that entice scores of organizations and schools into selling their products with the promise of cold, hard cash for projects and events.
How bad can a pizza day, a cookie sale or a donut blitz be if cute little kids, wearing their team uniforms, are shilling the stuff? Think about it. Those sweet little hockey players, cubs, brownies, grade four kids (sick of carrot sticks and hummus) are part of a marketing plan for junk food. If they live long enough, they could add their marketing experience to their resumes.
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