First lady urges marketing of healthy food to kids

http://www.chron.com/health/article/First-lady-urges-marketing-of-healthy-food-to-kids-4823404.php

Week 4 Article 1

1.    Superville, D. (2013 September, 18). First lady urges marketing of healthy food to kids. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.chron.com/health/article/First-lady-urges-marketing-of-healthy-food-to-kids-4823404.php.

2.    Category of problem: Childhood obesity

3.    Level of Problem: National

4.    This article concerns: The marketers of junk food geared toward children

5.    Affects families/individuals because children are watching these marketing ads and then begging the parents to buy the junk food for them. This has been a problem and will continue to affect families unless something is done.

6.    My concerns: While I do agree with Mrs. Obama on this issue I also think that more than marketing is to blame for this epidemic. I believe that while the vast marketing of junk food does play a role in childhood obesity I think that watching the bad habits of the children’s parents also plays a role. Kids go by example of what society and others do around them, if the parents are eating unhealthy then chances are the kids are eating unhealthy too. I think that we do need to increase the marketing for healthy food but that alone will not bring the numbers down for childhood obesity. We need to lower the cost of healthy and even organic food in order to make it more readily available to consumers. Along with lowering the cost we need to implement healthy foods into the schools. School is where a child spends most of their day, if they are not getting the proper nutrition there then how are they supposed to get it anywhere else? I think Mrs. Obama is going in the right direction with changing the marketing first but there is more to be done than just that.