Ban Ronald McDonald?

[Coito ergo sum]

I dont' like Mcdonalds either, but how fucking moralistically arrogant can people get??? Take children away from parents who allow their children to have food from a takeaway joint you don't like?

If you were referring to me, my suggestion was that anyone who can't tell their kids "no" when they don't want them to eat McDonald's should have them taken away. It was in response to those here who raised the specter of children pestering their parents for fast food so much that the parents can't say no. My point was that if you can't say no to your children, then you might not be a very good parent. I stand by that.

Who made you the fucking arbiter of parental obligations? To many it's just food ... there's a shitload more to parenting than what takeaway dinners children get to eat now and then. FFS.

I'm not the one advocating that Ronald McDonald be banned because it advocates "bad food" to children. If a person wants to give their kids McDonald's food, that's up to them.

[AshtonBlack]

We don't? What sort of television do you have? There are horror and other R rated flix on various cable channels where I live at all hours of the day and night.
And, keeping horror flicks off certain t.v. channels. is effectively done by market forces.

Of course, as a "good" parent, you control who watches what, when? Yes and other parental controls. Where's the advert parental controls on Jetix, Disney or similar? Because you quite rightly pointed out people should have the choice what their kids watch. If a child wants to watch a given channel that we have no choice which adverts are on.

Advertisers know full well that "pester power" is a genuine business strategy and will try to get the most profit from it.

Why not? If they're selling a lawful product...

Lego corporation really tries to get kids to pester their parents to buy them more Legos, too.

Beer is lawful, but we don't sell it to kids. There are specific regulations setting that out.

By using pester power, the corps are influencing the adults, without their consent. (They didn't necessarily watch the advert). And that's ok? What about subliminal advertising, is that fair game too?

As for Lego, I fail to see how a toy contributes to child hood obesity.

You may say, "Ahh well it's the parents fault for being weak willed and giving into their brats."

I do say that. It's a parent's job to instill self-discipline and to raise mature adults. Banning Ronald McDonald does nothing to assist in that regard.

Pretty sure I didn't say Banning Ronald anywhere, I even voted "No."
I think I said ban advertising junk food to kids, on children's channels/schedules.

So can we rely on people to do the right thing with reference to family nutrition? That is the option we have now.

Yes, we can, just as we always have.

Yeah, how's that Childhood Obesity working out for the US?

http://www.usnews.com/health/family-hea ... ng-up.html

The rates are going up and you still say "do nothing."

Well fair enough.

It just makes sense to me, to reduce the exposure of children to this type of advertising.

But, should it be by force of law?

It makes sense to me to reduce children's exposure to video games. However, I would not advocate banning them.

Huh? Who's talking about banning junk food? I'm taking about the advertisements aimed at kids.

I will concede, it is a contentious topic and no studies either way seem to be conclusive.

Or are even persuasive...

What would persuade you?

How would you combat child hood obesity? Or would you let nature take it's course and do nothing?

Have kids eat less and exercise more. The reason kids are fat is because they watch more t.v., sit in front of video games, and sit in front of computers longer than they ever have before - we have a far more sedentary society than ever before. Kids eat more calories, and burn less of them, so they get fat.

How would I combat childhood obesity? Expand sports in school -- allow more children to walk and bike to schools wherever possible, and perhaps fund education programs and campaigns to educate people on how to not be fat.

All good points and very true, but a little strange considering:

The State should not be telling its citizens what to feed their children. I, for one, don't trust the State to make that determination anyway since, like the Food Pyramid and "Recommended Daily Allowance" recommendations we have today, these are often partially driven by politics.

So which is it?

[Coito ergo sum]

He should be fucking shot - not banned. He is the least friendly and cuddly 'mascot' I can think of - the design of him is crass and clumsy, whatever the intention. I vote to ban him on aesthetic grounds, though on other grounds - well he can do what he likes. I kept my daughter away from his and McDs clutches and that's what matters to me!

That too. He's as loveable as Chucky and the marketing harkens back to the sixties. Not only that, there's no truth to that advertising, he should be shaped like a pear.

He kind of is shaped like pear - and look at Grimace and Mayor McCheese - they are no skinny minnies...

[Hermit]

Advertisers purposefully craft their message to persuade, so of course it's manipulative. It's designed to manipulate people into buying stuff. However, little children generally are under the control of their parents, and whether they buy McDonald's is wholly up their parents.

Further, if you ban the use of clowns in advertising for McDonald's because someone created a study which showed that kids responded favorably to the clown advertising, then you leave one group of people's freedom of expression hostage to other interest groups. When is a study sufficient? What if the study has flaws? What if there is a biased or ulterior motive on the part of the interest group?

This kind of thing is just going to escalate. They started with cultural demons - cigarette purveyors - and it was easy to get people to look the other way and squash free expression. Now Joe Camel is banned. So, the precedent gets set, and on we go! Let's squash Ronald McDonald! Then on to the "Bob's Big Boy" logo, right? After all, he is advocating eating that shitty food they have at Big Boy restaurants, and he's a little kid - clearly targeted at the child market. And, what about "Chuck-E-Cheese" and the mouse advertisement - they are CLEARLY marketed directly at children, and kids go their and mow on soft drinks, candy and pizza! Horrible foods!

So, we target Ronald McDonald - set a precedent - and soon the only fair way, given all the child-directed advertising out there, to decide what goes on the airwaves and what doesn't is to have a review board...."approved for children's programming" -- "approved symbols for child-related products..." etc. - it'll come...

Brilliant argument, man.

Until I read that, I too opposed the banning of Ronald McDonald.

[Coito ergo sum]

We don't? What sort of television do you have? There are horror and other R rated flix on various cable channels where I live at all hours of the day and night.
And, keeping horror flicks off certain t.v. channels. is effectively done by market forces.

Of course, as a "good" parent, you control who watches what, when? Yes and other parental controls. Where's the advert parental controls on Jetix, Disney or similar? Because you quite rightly pointed out people should have the choice what their kids watch. If a child wants to watch a given channel that we have no choice which adverts are on.

Advertisers know full well that "pester power" is a genuine business strategy and will try to get the most profit from it.

Why not? If they're selling a lawful product...

Lego corporation really tries to get kids to pester their parents to buy them more Legos, too.

Beer is lawful, but we don't sell it to kids. There are specific regulations setting that out.

We don't sell it to kids. However, we do allow beer advertising, at all hours of the day and night. And, frankly, if there is a regulation that says you can't have a clown sell beer, I'd oppose that too, for the same reasons. It's silly symbolic measures that do nothing to protect the chil'run.

By using pester power, the corps are influencing the adults, without their consent. (They didn't necessarily watch the advert). And that's ok? What about subliminal advertising, is that fair game too?

As for Lego, I fail to see how a toy contributes to child hood obesity.

You haven't established how eating 2000 calories of McDonald's food makes kids fatter than 2000 calories of home made meat and potatoes.

The reality is that kids are fat because they eat too much and burn off too few calories.

You may say, "Ahh well it's the parents fault for being weak willed and giving into their brats."

I do say that. It's a parent's job to instill self-discipline and to raise mature adults. Banning Ronald McDonald does nothing to assist in that regard.

Pretty sure I didn't say Banning Ronald anywhere, I even voted "No."
I think I said ban advertising junk food to kids, on children's channels/schedules.

Yes, you said that McDonald's should not be able to advertise to children. When would Ronald McDonald not be targeted at children? When is Ronald, Mayor McCheese and Grimace and the Hamburgler targeted at adults? After 8pm? On ABC and NBC in the afternoon?

So can we rely on people to do the right thing with reference to family nutrition? That is the option we have now.

Yes, we can, just as we always have.

Yeah, how's that Childhood Obesity working out for the US?

You'll need to establish that eating excessive McDonald's food makes people fatter than eating excessive other foods.

The rates are going up and you still say "do nothing."

I didn't advocate doing nothing - far fucking from it. I advocated expanding sports in schools, expanding kids walking and biking to and from school wherever possible and safe, and expanding health education in schools and even parental education to explain to them that kids need to excercise and eat less.

People are fat because they eat more than they burn.

Well fair enough.

It was decidedly unfair, since you mischaracterized my argument as "do nothing" when I specifically stated what I would do. The only thing I've argued not doing is limiting the right to advertise a lawful product based on trumped up and unsubstantiated connections between McDonald's and childhood obesity (as distinct from EXCESSIVE FOOD INTAKE and childhood obesity).

It just makes sense to me, to reduce the exposure of children to this type of advertising.

But, should it be by force of law?

It makes sense to me to reduce children's exposure to video games. However, I would not advocate banning them.

Huh? Who's talking about banning junk food? I'm taking about the advertisements aimed at kids.[/quote]

You trust the State to determine what is "aimed at kids" and what is not?

I will concede, it is a contentious topic and no studies either way seem to be conclusive.

Or are even persuasive...

What would persuade you?

Evidence.

How would you combat child hood obesity? Or would you let nature take it's course and do nothing?

Have kids eat less and exercise more. The reason kids are fat is because they watch more t.v., sit in front of video games, and sit in front of computers longer than they ever have before - we have a far more sedentary society than ever before. Kids eat more calories, and burn less of them, so they get fat.

How would I combat childhood obesity? Expand sports in school -- allow more children to walk and bike to schools wherever possible, and perhaps fund education programs and campaigns to educate people on how to not be fat.

All good points and very true, but a little strange considering:

The State should not be telling its citizens what to feed their children. I, for one, don't trust the State to make that determination anyway since, like the Food Pyramid and "Recommended Daily Allowance" recommendations we have today, these are often partially driven by politics.

So which is it?

The difference is between providing education and mandating/prohibiting.

Just as the State can run a public school system and teach different subjects and have sports in school, so too it can "expand sports." It can also facilitate the burning of calories by having students walk and bike places where possible/practical. So too schools can expand health and fitness education and have more time for recess and workouts - why not? How, exactly, is that different than having a school system in general?

Banning advertisements is limiting freedom of expression. Expanding education is.....well..."expanding education."

Plus, once again, there is no evidence that eating of fast foods SPECIFICALLY qua fast foods is what's making people fat. There is, however, evidence - firm, grounded, scientific, evidence that shows that eating more calories than you burn results in your body storing fat. So, if you eat 3000 calories of McDonalds or 3,000 calories of beans, rice and fish, it's 3,000 calories. If you only burn 2000 calories that day, well, your body is going to store what it doesn't shit, piss or burn/use. Period - end of story. If you take in 1,000 extra calories a day, then you're going to get fat, whether from McDonalds or supermarket food.

Until someone presents some evidence that McDonalds, etc., food somehow makes you gain weight faster given the same number of calories, then it's fostering a myth.

It's like this fucking High Fructose Corn Syrup woo. People out there think that we're fat because stuff has High Fructose Corn syrup in it, and there is absolutely zero empirical evidence that effect. It's just plain, flat out woo.

[AshtonBlack]

No evidence.... Perhaps not conclusive, but certainly persuasive:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs ... cannex.pdf

I'll quote from this scientific paper:

From: T. Lobstein and S. Dibb

Food companies and advertising agencies have denied
that the content of advertisements or the number of advertisements
has a significant role in causing weight gain, but
a systematic review by Hastings
et al found that such
a direct link was probable. Their review concluded that
children enjoy and engage with food promotions such as
advertisements, and that food promotion ‘is having an
effect, particularly on children’s preferences, purchase
behaviour and consumption’ and that this effect is ‘independent
of other factors and operates at both a brand and
category level’. An open peer review of Hastings
et al's report confirmed that it had ‘provided sufficient evidence
to indicate a causal link between promotional activity and
children’s food knowledge, preferences and behaviours’
(16).

Doesn't look like woo to me.

[Valden]

They should just make the doors to all fast food places really narrow ....

Without places like McDonald's fewer people would be overweight and likely to die sooner. So McD's doing a public service by thinning out the population. If they need Ronnie to do that, mo' powah to them.


Anyway, I blame Darwin.

I agree with both statements.

[RuleBritannia]

The difference is between providing education and mandating/prohibiting.

Just as the State can run a public school system and teach different subjects and have sports in school, so too it can "expand sports." It can also facilitate the burning of calories by having students walk and bike places where possible/practical. So too schools can expand health and fitness education and have more time for recess and workouts - why not? How, exactly, is that different than having a school system in general?

Banning advertisements is limiting freedom of expression. Expanding education is.....well..."expanding education."

Plus, once again, there is no evidence that eating of fast foods SPECIFICALLY qua fast foods is what's making people fat. There is, however, evidence - firm, grounded, scientific, evidence that shows that eating more calories than you burn results in your body storing fat. So, if you eat 3000 calories of McDonalds or 3,000 calories of beans, rice and fish, it's 3,000 calories. If you only burn 2000 calories that day, well, your body is going to store what it doesn't shit, piss or burn/use. Period - end of story. If you take in 1,000 extra calories a day, then you're going to get fat, whether from McDonalds or supermarket food.

Until someone presents some evidence that McDonalds, etc., food somehow makes you gain weight faster given the same number of calories, then it's fostering a myth.

It's like this fucking High Fructose Corn Syrup woo. People out there think that we're fat because stuff has High Fructose Corn syrup in it, and there is absolutely zero empirical evidence that effect. It's just plain, flat out woo.

Calories are units of energy not fat. Two food items can have 100 calories each, but if one has 100g of fat and the other has none, then they're not gonna make you equally fat, du!

If you consume 3000 calories and only burn 2000, then you have 1000 calories worth of energy left, NOT fat.

The energy of the calorie can come from fat, saturated fat, sugar, fibre, salt, protein, carbohydrate, sodium etc.

[Rum]

Advertisers purposefully craft their message to persuade, so of course it's manipulative. It's designed to manipulate people into buying stuff. However, little children generally are under the control of their parents, and whether they buy McDonald's is wholly up their parents.

Further, if you ban the use of clowns in advertising for McDonald's because someone created a study which showed that kids responded favorably to the clown advertising, then you leave one group of people's freedom of expression hostage to other interest groups. When is a study sufficient? What if the study has flaws? What if there is a biased or ulterior motive on the part of the interest group?

This kind of thing is just going to escalate. They started with cultural demons - cigarette purveyors - and it was easy to get people to look the other way and squash free expression. Now Joe Camel is banned. So, the precedent gets set, and on we go! Let's squash Ronald McDonald! Then on to the "Bob's Big Boy" logo, right? After all, he is advocating eating that shitty food they have at Big Boy restaurants, and he's a little kid - clearly targeted at the child market. And, what about "Chuck-E-Cheese" and the mouse advertisement - they are CLEARLY marketed directly at children, and kids go their and mow on soft drinks, candy and pizza! Horrible foods!

So, we target Ronald McDonald - set a precedent - and soon the only fair way, given all the child-directed advertising out there, to decide what goes on the airwaves and what doesn't is to have a review board...."approved for children's programming" -- "approved symbols for child-related products..." etc. - it'll come...

Brilliant argument, man.

Until I read that, I too opposed the banning of Ronald McDonald.

Well the first point is that parents are known to respond to 'pester power' ( see here if you want to read more: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/p ... t_kids.cfm) so it isn't (even if it should be) totally up to the parents. We also know that childhood obesity is very high and growing and that we are storing up health problems big time.

I want control over the messages my kids receive. I would not suggest a 'panel' but censorship over what my kids see and hear is vital and quite a reasonable expectatrion. We don't let them see porn or violence and I don't want them being told the latest expensive toy will make life wonderful for them either, or that McDonalds is the greatest place going.

[Coito ergo sum]

The difference is between providing education and mandating/prohibiting.

Just as the State can run a public school system and teach different subjects and have sports in school, so too it can "expand sports." It can also facilitate the burning of calories by having students walk and bike places where possible/practical. So too schools can expand health and fitness education and have more time for recess and workouts - why not? How, exactly, is that different than having a school system in general?

Banning advertisements is limiting freedom of expression. Expanding education is.....well..."expanding education."

Plus, once again, there is no evidence that eating of fast foods SPECIFICALLY qua fast foods is what's making people fat. There is, however, evidence - firm, grounded, scientific, evidence that shows that eating more calories than you burn results in your body storing fat. So, if you eat 3000 calories of McDonalds or 3,000 calories of beans, rice and fish, it's 3,000 calories. If you only burn 2000 calories that day, well, your body is going to store what it doesn't shit, piss or burn/use. Period - end of story. If you take in 1,000 extra calories a day, then you're going to get fat, whether from McDonalds or supermarket food.

Until someone presents some evidence that McDonalds, etc., food somehow makes you gain weight faster given the same number of calories, then it's fostering a myth.

It's like this fucking High Fructose Corn Syrup woo. People out there think that we're fat because stuff has High Fructose Corn syrup in it, and there is absolutely zero empirical evidence that effect. It's just plain, flat out woo.

Calories are units of energy not fat.

I know that. That's what I said.

Two food items can have 100 calories each, but if one has 100g of fat and the other has none, then they're not gonna make you equally fat, du!

False.

Low fat diets that are just as high in calories as a higher fat diet will make you just as fat.

If you consume 3000 calories and only burn 2000, then you have 1000 calories worth of energy left, NOT fat.

The body stores the excess energy by adding to fat cells.

The energy of the calorie can come from fat, saturated fat, sugar, fibre, salt, protein, carbohydrate, sodium etc.

Correct. Of course. The body takes in the food, and it's fat, carbohydrate, or protein for the most part, and it goes through chemical reactions in the alimentary canal which "burns" the food which fuels the body's metabolic processes.

They measure the caloric content of food by, literally, burning it and seeing how much it heats up a certain volume of water. Fat only makes you "fatter" easier because it has more than twice as many calories per gram as protein and carbs. Every gram of protein has 4 calories - every gram of carbohydrate has 4 calories - every gram of fat has 9 calories. Thus, in the same mass of food, fat gives you more than double the calories. So, it's easier to eat more calories of fat than it is to eat more calories of proteins and carbs.

A good rule of thumb (and that's all that it is, as people vary a good deal from this) is that you need to burn about 3500 calories more than you take in to reduce your fat storage by one pound. So, to lose weight you need to confidently establish your metabolic rate (how many calories your body burns during "normal" activities for you per day), and then adjust your calories out (exercise) and your calories in. If you set up a caloric deficit of 500 calories each day, every day, then you should lose about a pound a week. It makes little to no difference if your calories come into your body as fat, protein or carbs (other than nutritionally you need all three to be healthy).

[maiforpeace]

Thanks Rule.

Coito, most of your counter arguments to my OP are addressed quite well by Jamie in this video.

I would add:

You just knew this road was going to be traveled when we sat back and let these freaks make Joe Camel illegal...

I happen to be one of those "freaks" you are referring to. I supported this. And this was a bad thing, because?

1. It was a restriction and infringement on a fundamental liberty - freedom of speech and expression. It limits a group of people's right to organize and advocate the sale/purchase/consumption of a lawful product.

2. There was nothing inherently "child-targeted" about the Joe Camel advertisements. Since the 1980's, cartoons have been targeted at adults, and adults have enjoyed cartoons and cartoon advertising. It was a manufactured controversy over a cartoon that some people claimed, without substantiation, was "targeted" at "children" when the reality was that it was "targeted" at adults. College age adults, for example, liked the Joe Camel character and responded to it, purchased and wore shirts and other merchandise with the Camel image, etc. These days, adults watch "the Simpsons," "South Park," "Family Guy," "American Dad," "Futurama," "Adult Swim," and a host of other cartoons, and respond to advertising including characters from those cartoons.

3. It sets a bad precedent of "nanny state" mentality, wherein we expect the State to step in and protect us from what is "bad" for us. It's similar to the Prohibition movement.

Have cigarettes and burgers been banned? News to me.

The controversy and the subsequent removal of Joe Camel from advertising was over 13 years ago and could hardly be called a precedent.

You are projecting fears about the restriction of liberties to 'groups' when the only liberties I see being restricted by such legislation so far is that of the large corporations to market products that are bad for our health. I'll join you in this protest when our government decides to restrict the freedom of the broccoli farmers by banning Mr. Broccoli advertising.

As long as we are providing free health care and education to children, we are a nanny state. Based on results parents aren't taking care of children as they should be. Again, watch Jamie Oliver's video to get a profile of the American parent and how they feed their family and the subsequent results in terms of health. It is taking a village, of which I am a part (by paying taxes that fund the health care of children) so I am glad there are groups like Corporate Accountability International to counter what appears to be mostly the concerns of corporations that have profits to lose, and/or individual's 'fears' about the restrictions of personal liberties.

[Coito ergo sum]

No evidence.... Perhaps not conclusive, but certainly persuasive:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs ... cannex.pdf

I'll quote from this scientific paper:

From: T. Lobstein and S. Dibb

Food companies and advertising agencies have denied
that the content of advertisements or the number of advertisements
has a significant role in causing weight gain, but
a systematic review by Hastings
et al found that such
a direct link was probable. Their review concluded that
children enjoy and engage with food promotions such as
advertisements, and that food promotion ‘is having an
effect, particularly on children’s preferences, purchase
behaviour and consumption’ and that this effect is ‘independent
of other factors and operates at both a brand and
category level’. An open peer review of Hastings
et al's report confirmed that it had ‘provided sufficient evidence
to indicate a causal link between promotional activity and
children’s food knowledge, preferences and behaviours’
(16).

Doesn't look like woo to me.

What I referred to as "woo" was the High Fructose Corn Syrup anti-craze.

However, needless to say, if a person eats more food than their body needs/burns, they will gain weight. That is it.

Even the title of your article that you linked to refers to a "possible" link. Possible. Further, the author Lobstein is with the "International Obesity Task Force." He has that entities agenda.

The conclusion of the report was that it found an "association" between obesity and the number of advertisements for food per hour on children's television. Nothing was established by this study.

In addition, the TIME spent in front of televisions and computers among young children has been shown to correlate extraordinarily well with how fat they are. More "TIME" in front of the tube equals fatter: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2008/080421.htm

So, let's look at our choices here - we can say that young children watch advertisements for various foods, and are motivated to go eat them, therefore they bug their parents to go to these restaurants, some of the parents cave in and let their kids eat too much of these foods, and had they not taken them to the fast food restaurants the children would have eaten less at home.

Or,

Sitting in front of the TV or a computer is almost a completely sedentary activity, and it is an activity that is very closely associated with snacking. The fewer hours one spends watching a t.v. or playing on a computer equals more hours physically playing or engaged in other active pursuits. That results in more calories burned per hour, and fewer extra calories eaten. The more hours one spends in front of the t.v., the less time one is doing other active things. It's not, obviously, the television itself causing the fatness - it's the INACTIVITY. It doesn't matter what is on the t.v. - even if the child spends the time watching commercial free t.v., the task of watching t.v. is sedentary.

I can tell you this - it is an established FACT that if you eat more than your body needs/burns, you will gain fat. Period. That's the way the body works. The more you choose sedentary activities, the fewer calories you will burn. It's the difference between sitting inside and watching a movie on a Saturday or going outside and playing tag or hide and seek. On average, the kid who plays outside all the time will be less fat than the kid who sits inside all the time because the former burns more calories.

We need to recognize - IMHO - that kids are fat lard-asses these days because they are being (a) fed too much, and (b) they are not exercising enough. Getting rid of all advertisements regarding food won't change that. The stats reveal that kids and teens 8 to 18 years spend nearly 4 hours a day in front of a TV screen and almost 2 additional hours on the computer (outside of schoolwork) and playing video games! As long as they are going to spend 6 hours a day in front of t.v. and video game screens, they aren't exercising. I can tell you factor number one in why the kids are soft, flabby fat-bodies these days: school for 6-8 hours - plus 6 hours of t.v. and computers - then to bed for 8 hours. In the 70's and early 80's, most of us spent our after-school time almost every day playing baseball, running around the neighborhood, playing football, and riding bikes. I am fairly sure that in the 50s and 60s, it was the same --- in the 90s and the 2000's, however, something changed - and now kids don't do nearly as much of that stuff.

The math is easy to do. We can pretend it's because of Ronald McDonald, or we can recognize the very simple facts - WE EAT TOO FUCKING MUCH!

Look at the average - http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2006/ ... er_day.php - the UN Food and Agricultural Organization issued a report showing that the average American eats 3,790 calories per day. That is up about 300 calories a day since the 1970s.

That 300 extra calories every day on average is HUGE! That's an extra 8%, approximately, increase in food intake. Couple that with the 40% increase in television watching time since 1960, and what do you get? MORE CALORIES IN, and FEWER CALORIES OUT. That equals fat.

[Coito ergo sum]

You just knew this road was going to be traveled when we sat back and let these freaks make Joe Camel illegal...

I happen to be one of those "freaks" you are referring to. I supported this. And this was a bad thing, because?

1. It was a restriction and infringement on a fundamental liberty - freedom of speech and expression. It limits a group of people's right to organize and advocate the sale/purchase/consumption of a lawful product.

2. There was nothing inherently "child-targeted" about the Joe Camel advertisements. Since the 1980's, cartoons have been targeted at adults, and adults have enjoyed cartoons and cartoon advertising. It was a manufactured controversy over a cartoon that some people claimed, without substantiation, was "targeted" at "children" when the reality was that it was "targeted" at adults. College age adults, for example, liked the Joe Camel character and responded to it, purchased and wore shirts and other merchandise with the Camel image, etc. These days, adults watch "the Simpsons," "South Park," "Family Guy," "American Dad," "Futurama," "Adult Swim," and a host of other cartoons, and respond to advertising including characters from those cartoons.

3. It sets a bad precedent of "nanny state" mentality, wherein we expect the State to step in and protect us from what is "bad" for us. It's similar to the Prohibition movement.

Have cigarettes and burgers been banned? News to me.

No, but I never said they were. We're talking about the advertisements, and the comparison between the Joe Camel banning, and the now attempted Ron McDonald banning.

The controversy and the subsequent removal of Joe Camel from advertising was over 13 years ago and could hardly be called a precedent.

Of course it's a precedent. Precedent: "any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification for subsequent situations." It's the same nonsense, only with fast food ads now.

You are projecting fears about the restriction of liberties to 'groups' when the only liberties I see being restricted by such legislation so far is that of the large corporations to market products that are bad for our health.

Individual liberties apply to groups of people as well as individuals. Freedom of speech applies just as much to an "organization" of individuals as to an individual himself. Freedom of speech and press, for example, apply to John Doe and Mary Roe, as well as "John Doe and Mary Roe Association."

I'll join you in this protest when our government decides to restrict the freedom of the broccoli farmers by banning Mr. Broccoli advertising.

Why? Why would you do that?

What about when they try to ban advertising for salt? Heck the State of New York has tried to ban salt in restaurants.....not just the advertising of it...

As long as we are providing free health care and education to children, we are a nanny state. Based on results parents aren't taking care of children as they should be. Again, watch Jamie Oliver's video to get a profile of the American parent and how they feed their family and the subsequent results in terms of health. It is taking a village, of which I am a part (by paying taxes that fund the health care of children) so I am glad there are groups like Corporate Accountability International to counter what appears to be mostly the concerns of corporations that have profits to lose, and/or individual's 'fears' about the restrictions of personal liberties.

Well, when they try to tell you what to do in an area where you disagree, then hopefully there will be enough people around to join with you in a defense. Otherwise, you'll just have to take it.

[Trolldor]

Americans are evidentially too stupid to look after their own bodies, so the state has to do something.

[maiforpeace]

Americans are evidentially too stupid to look after their own bodies, so the state has to do something.