Posted by Todd Zywicki:
Investor's Business Daily Tosses Its Cookies:
Excellent Editorial earlier this week in Investor's Business Daily,
"Tossing Our Cookies" ($) nails the obesity issue:
Nutrition: The recent announcement by PBS that Sesame Street's
Cookie Monster will be a spokespuppet for healthy eating ignores
the fact that obesity is caused by what children eat and not by
what they watch.
No one recalls that the movie "Veggie Tales" caused any youngsters
to start raiding the fridge in search of cucumbers and broccoli.
Yet the theory that movies and TV unduly influence what children
eat is behind the decision by PBS to send his blue furriness, the
Cookie Monster, to a politically correct reeducation camp,
returning to advise kids who presumably don't have parental
supervision that cookies aren't everything and let the chocolate
chips fall where they may.
They also cite yours truly:
Furthermore, as George Mason University's Todd Zywicki notes, the
average American child watches less TV that he or she used to
because of competing influences such as video games, personal
computers and cell phones. We now have cable and remote controls
and TiVo. Kids don't just sit through commercials that much
anymore.
Overall, it is a nice roundup of the paucity of evidence on the
advertising-children's obesity link.
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