« March 2005 | Main | May 2005 »
April 26, 2005
Commercial Alert Petitions USDA to Enforce Restrictions on Sale of Junk Food in Schools
Commercial Alert filed a petition for rule-making today with the U.S. Department of Agriculture requesting that it strengthen the enforcement of federal rules prohibiting the sale of soda pop and some types of candies in school cafeterias across the country.
USDA rules currently prohibit the sale of “foods of minimal nutritional value” during mealtimes in school cafeterias. But the enforcement provisions for these rules are extremely lax, so some schools may not take them seriously.
“We’re asking the USDA to side with parents who want their kids to grow up healthy, not with the junk food companies that want to stuff our children with sugar and caffeine,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. “The USDA should strengthen existing rules against the sale of junk food in school – before the childhood obesity epidemic gets any worse.”
USDA admitted last month in a report that it does not know whether schools are complying with prohibitions against the sale of foods of minimal nutritional value during school mealtimes. The report stated, “it is unclear to what extent federal and state regulations [against the sale of foods of minimum nutritional value] are enforced at the local level.”
Foods of minimal nutritional value are defined as soda pop, water ices, chewing gum, and certain types of candies, such as hard candies, jellied candies, licorice and marshmallows.
According to a Wall Street Journal poll in February, 2005, 83% of American adults “believe public schools need to do a better job of limiting children's access to unhealthy foods like snack foods, sugary soft drinks and fast food.”
Posted by Gary Ruskin at 06:12 AM | Comments (2)
April 21, 2005
American Diabetes Association Sells Out to Cadbury Schweppes
Today, the American Diabetes Association announced a corrupt new “multi-million dollar alliance” with Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, a major manufacturer of sweetened soft drinks that are implicated in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the United States.
“Maybe the American Diabetes Association should rename itself the American Junk Food Association,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. “What will it do for an encore? Start selling candy bars for M&M/Mars?”
“If Cadbury Schweppes really wanted to reduce the incidence of obesity and diabetes, it would stop advertising its high-sugar products, and remove them from our nation’s schools,” Ruskin said. “This is just another attempt by a major junk food corporation to obfuscate its responsibility in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the United States.”
“The American Diabetes Association should return this corrupt contribution to Cadbury Schweppes immediately,” Ruskin said.
More information about the American Diabetes Association-Cadbury Schweppes “alliance” is available at: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050421/dcth002.html?.v=7
Posted by Gary Ruskin at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)
April 18, 2005
Kennedy Introduces Bill to Ban Junk Food From Schools Nationwide
On Friday, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy re-introduced his bill to ban the sale of junk food and soda pop in public schools nationwide.
The bill is called the "Prevention of Childhood Obesity Act" (S. 799), and it has several excellent provisions.
Most importantly, in schools that receive federal funds, the bill would ban vending machines that sell "foods of poor or minimal nutritional value," including soda pop, some candy, chewing gum, etc. It would provide grants to schools that prohibit advertising and marketing of "foods of poor or minimal nutritional values such as fast foods, soft drinks and candy," or provide food options low in fat, calories and added sugars, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains. It would require daily physical activity classes, and would encourage the consumption of water in school and in communities.
Click here to send emails to your senators in support of the bill.
Posted by Gary Ruskin at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2005
New Study Ties Teen Magazines to Suicide
The Sunday Times ran a report on a new Glasgow University study linking teen magazines with rising rates of suicide among girls.
Modern advertising relentlessly attacks girls' body image, leading to low self-esteem and depression.
Here's the beginning of the Sunday Times article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-1573008_1,00.html
Teen magazines blamed for rise in girls’ suicide
by Mark Macaskill
Depression and low self-esteem are fuelling a dramatic rise in suicides among teenage girls in Scotland, a government-funded study has revealed.
The suicide rate among young women aged 15-24 has risen more rapidly than in any other group.
The alarming trend is exposed in a study by academics at Glasgow University, which shows that the number of suicides has risen to nearly two a week — a rise of almost 50% over the past 20 years.
Leading academics and children’s campaigners are calling for urgent government action to tackle the problem, which they believe is fuelled by pressure on young women to conform to images of female perfection in teenage magazines.
A recent survey of 2,000 teenage girls in Britain found that 70% dislike their faces and only 8% are happy with their body. Two-thirds think their lives would improve dramatically if they lost weight. Most said they were made to feel bad about their bodies by images of “perfect” celebrities.
Posted by Gary Ruskin at 08:44 PM | Comments (4)
April 08, 2005
Keep Public Space Public: Stop Annoying TVs on Trains
Advertisers' exploitation of captive audiences is on the rise. The latest frontier is mass transit.
USA Today reported today on the The Rail Network, and its efforts to put put TV screens with ads on subway systems in Atlanta, Washington, Denver, Boston ane elsewhere.
State and local legislators should reject these mass transit TV's, and reserve public spaces like the bus and train for reading, quiet reflection, prayer, homework and the discharge of civic duties.
Here's today's article in USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-07-subways-tv_x.htm
Subways tune in to new revenue
By Larry Copeland
ATLANTA — Subway riders here soon will be able to watch television and hear piped-in music in a first-of-its-kind venture designed to raise money for the city's cash-strapped transit agency.
A television plays on a MARTA train as Astride Justin from Norcross, Ga., tunes her radio to the first TV and radio network for rail riders.
The Rail Network, a private company based in New York, is installing five 15-inch, flat-screen televisions inside each of 100 rail cars and eventually will put them in all of the Atlanta system's 338 cars. Later this spring, trains will feature updated news programming in English or Spanish from Atlanta's ABC affiliate, as well as three music channels.
Passengers will have to bring their own headsets. Televisions will have closed captioning, and audio will be available only through FM radios and FM-ready cell phones.
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) expects to generate $20 million over 10 years in advertising revenue from the deal. That's a small part of MARTA's $316 million operating budget and is unlikely to delay a proposed one-way fare increase from $1.75 to $2.
But for today's transit agencies, every little bit helps. David Lane, CEO of the Rail Network, says company officials have met with "every major transit system in North America" and received indications of interest from all of them.
He says the transit agencies in the Washington, D.C., area and in Vancouver, British Columbia, have requested proposals from companies to modify rail cars for the TVs.
Systems get on board
Most of the nation's transit agencies are facing deficits and struggling to get back in the black while holding fares as low as possible. Several are turning for help to televisions on the trains, tapping into a relatively captive audience. The concept is similar to elevators in office buildings that feature TV screens offering news updates and advertising. Among the cities looking at transit TVs:
•Washington, D.C. Metro, the capital region's public transit system, is planning a two-year pilot program with a private company that will install TV monitors on two six-car trains and 25 buses. "The video monitors would display news, weather, sports, transit authority information and ads," says Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel, who won't identify the firm. Taubenkibel says that over two or three years, the video monitors — along with new advertisements in subway tunnels and ATMs in stations — are expected to generate "a couple of million" dollars. The Metro budget for the current fiscal year is $943 million.
•Denver. The Regional Transportation District is studying Atlanta's experiment to see if it could work in Denver. In February, the district approved a pilot program to install 19-inch screens and speakers on some buses and light-rail cars. But the agency was unable to agree on a contract with the provider of television programming, assistant general manager Tony McCaulay says.
•Boston. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, facing a $10 million deficit next year, announced a plan last month to install television screens in subway cars on three lines within a year. The agency says the plan could generate $3.5 million a year in advertising revenue.
More transit systems are likely to follow suit, says Bill Millar, president and CEO of the American Public Transportation Association, which lobbies to improve public transit. "Pressures on governmental budgets have been building over the years, and transit systems have been seeking sources of revenue so they can keep their fares low while maintaining the tax revenues necessary to run them," he says.
While subway TV appears to be a new concept, Orlando pioneered TVs on buses several years ago, Ruskin says. The Orlando transit system, nicknamed Lynx, now has them on 162 of 238 buses, spokesman Brian Martin says. The audio is broadcast through the speaker systems of the buses, but he says few passengers have complained.
Using technology it invented, the Rail Network televisions will provide subway riders with news and advertising programming that is updated throughout the day. "The passengers will get content that is relevant to them," Lane says. "They're going to see what they would see at home while they're riding in that rail car."
But viewers at home increasingly have ways to avoid TV and radio advertising. Systems such as TiVo and older technology such as videocassette recorders allow people to fast-forward through ads to watch their favorite shows. Commercial-free satellite radio is increasingly popular.
Public opinion
Commuters on subways have no such options. Even if they don't have headsets, they will be exposed to the video — an idea that doesn't thrill every passenger. During public hearings on Washington's plan, "some people were concerned about the video monitors intruding upon the quiet of the buses and trains," Taubenkibel says.
Despite assurances from transit officials here and in Boston that their systems will be silent, television on the subway is "a bad idea for a lot of reasons," says Gary Ruskin, head of Commercial Alert, a group based in Oregon that opposes commercialism in government.
"First, people shouldn't be forced to watch ads," he says. "This is part of the advertising industry's trend toward coercive advertising. The ad industry is so unpopular, they think they have to force people to watch ads. Second, those (rail cars) are civic spaces that are used to discharge civic duties like read the newspaper and do homework."
Commuters in Atlanta — MARTA has about 225,000 rail riders a day and another 225,000 bus riders — are taking a wait-and-see approach.
"I think as long as there's news being presented and people can have access to educational content, it's probably a pretty good idea," says Marselle Harrison-Miles, 31, getting off a train at the Hamilton E. Holmes MARTA station in west Atlanta. She says she'll ride MARTA "a lot more now that gas is going up."
Marcus Snell, 35, a valet parking attendant at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, says he usually brings a compact disc or digital music player for his commute. "I'm into music," he says. "So it really won't affect me. If it'll help them raise money and keep fares low, I'm fine with anything that keeps money in my pocket."
Posted by Gary Ruskin at 07:33 AM | Comments (1)
April 06, 2005
Raffi Joins Commercial Alert’s Board of Advisors
We’re proud to announce that Raffi Cavoukian, the singer/songwriter, has joined Commercial Alert’s board of advisors.
“I’ve spent much of my adult life promoting a child-honoring society, in which love and respect for children takes precedence in our institutions, laws, and customs,” Raffi said. “Our children need us to work together to achieve this goal.”
“We must create a culture of deep compassion in which the well-being of our young guides public policy. I’m pleased to join with Commercial Alert to help protect children from commercial assaults,” Raffi said. "We have a duty to safeguard our children from exploitation."
For more information about child honoring, see the Troubadour Foundation’s website,
www.troubadourfoundation.org
Posted by Gary Ruskin at 07:07 AM | Comments (1)
April 05, 2005
TV Turns Kids into Bullies
A new report in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine suggests that young children who watch more television are more likely to become bullies.
"We have added bullying to the list of potential negative consequences of excessive television viewing, along with obesity, inattention, and other types of aggression," the authors write.
The study is titled "Early Cognitive Stimulation, Emotional Support, and Television Watching as Predictors of Subsequent Bullying Among Grade-School Children." The lead author is Frederick Zimmerman, Director of the Child Health Institute at the University of Washington.
Following is an article from Reuters about the study on TV and bullying.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/parenting/04/05/bullying.reut/
CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- The more television 4-year-old children watch the more likely they are to become bullies later on in school, a U.S. study said on Monday.
At the same time, children whose parents read to them, take them on outings and just generally pay attention to them are less likely to become bullies, said the report from the University of Washington.
Bullying can now be added "to the list of potential negative consequences of excessive television viewing along with obesity, inattention and other types of aggression," said Frederick Zimmerman who led the research.
"Our findings suggest some steps that can be taken with children to potentially help prevent bullying. Maximizing cognitive stimulation and limiting television watching in the early years of development might reduce children's subsequent risk of becoming bullies," he added.
Previous research had indicated that emotional support from parents helps young children develop empathy, self-regulation and social skills, making them less likely to be bullies, said the report published in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Researchers have also found that early gaps in learning and understanding may make children less competent in dealing with their peers and that violence on television leads to aggressive behavior, it added.
The Washington study reached its conclusions by looking at data from a study of 1,266 four-year-olds whose bullying -- based on assessments from their mothers -- was tracked at ages 6 through 11. Overall, about 13 percent the children turned out to be bullies.
The study also took into account the stimulation the children received as measured by outings, reading, playing and what role the parents played in teaching the children.
Whether the child ate meals with both parents, whether parents talked to the child while working were also measured, along with the average number of hours of television viewed.
Posted by Gary Ruskin at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
