We have been saturated in recent weeks with new books that are filled with insider information and facts illuminating a decades long effort by an industry that reaps billions in profits to create and sustain the American people's lifelong dependency on a high calorie, low nutrition diet of junk food. That processed food diet may be fast, affordable and easy, but it is now killing us off by the hundreds of thousands while costing taxpayers and employers billions of dollars thanks to the chronic disease it fosters. So, we are poisoning our children and ourselves and paying for the pleasure, and we can no longer claim we didnt know.
Young children who don't yet have the skills to differentiate between promotion and facts are bombarded by $1.6 billion in junk food advertising every year. Still efforts to manage access for children, or limit advertising to them, or control portion sizes or labeling, are all stalled--mired in politics and awash in lobbying dollars to prevent them.
Do we sit so idly by and allow our babies unfettered access to tobacco, drugs and alcohol? Do we offer our toddlers a line of cocaine or a swig of scotch the way we so blithely pass out pop tarts and Cheetos? It's time we started treating junk food as the controlled substance that it should be.
Fact is that the food companies have learned how to create hyper-palatable cuisine that looks just like the healthier stuff we used to eat. The change in our diet has crept into our everyday lives slowly over the last forty years while we weren't looking. It's time to start looking, asking questions, reading the labels and demanding a stop to the slow poisoning of an entire generation. It's time to say "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" and insist that our policy makers establish controls that help us stay informed and protect our children.
And, we need to take back control in our own homes: Turn off the ads, close the door on the promotional bribery of our kids, and vote with our wallets. Simply quit buying the junk. Cold Turkey. A profit-driven industry will give us what we demand. For the sake of our children, it's time we demanded healthier food.
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