The Burger, The Fries, And The Toy Might Be Appealing To Your Kids, But Here's Why You Should Say No

Great video with useful information on why we should protect EVERYONE from processed/junk food.

Key points:

1. Food Corporations spend an average of 2 billion dollars specifically on food ads targeted at kids and teens
2. These ads are promoting food that is cheap, easy to brand & addictive
3. A typical kid sees about 5000 food and drink TV ads every year, almost ALL promote food high in sugar, salt and saturated fat

What these ads aren't telling us:

1. That 1 in 3 kids eat fast food everyday
2. Nearly HALF the calories children & teens consume are from FAT and SUGAR 
3. Only 16% are getting enough fruit & vege in their diet (what the)
4. (No wonder the following diseases are increasing among youngsters) Heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, obesity, type 2 diabetes and even cancer.
5. Processed/junk food has been engineered to target our evolutionary impulses because here's the thing, fat and sugar isn't normally found so easily in natural food, and the more we eat processed food (which is so high in fat and sugar), the more the brain evolves to crave as much of both as possible. That's partly why we get so crazy sometimes craving these processed types of food!
6. Watching these 5000 ads makes kiddies develop subconscious preferences for particular brands of food
7. The food industry hires specific people to create these ads.They decide everything, from the visuals, colors  and characters used, all in a kind effort to manipulate how we think/ what we associate the brand with.
8. These companies penetrate all aspects of our lives, from being sponsors of books used for education, to online/social media site advertising, "free games"/ apps, and junk food product placements in movies and TV shows!

The good news:

Change has already begun, for example, the school administrators in St Paul Minnesota have banned school based marketing of junk food and sugary drinks and even a grocery store chain owner in Maryland has taken food products featuring cartoon characters off the shelves of his store. In Quebec, there has been a ban placed on fast food advertising targeted at kids. And guess what? A 13% decrease in fast food consumption has been found! 

WOO! Let's work together to scale up these wins!

Handshakes and Curtsies,

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