• Los Angeles Times (free registration required), Tuesday, May 16, 2006 11:30 AM

It's no wonder that American kids are suffering from an obesity problem, when you consider that some of the educational materials they are given are actually product placements for junk food. That's what Catherine Price, a former teacher turned writer, says in this provocative article. She points out that the following sentences appear on the first page of "The Oreo Cookie Counting Book," published by an imprint of Simon & Schuster: ""Ten little Oreos, all in a line. Dunk one in a glass of milk, and now there are nine." On the back cover it goes on to say, "Children will love to count down as 10 little Oreos are dunked, nibbled and stacked one by one until there are none!" Price writes: "The problem, of course, is that encouraging children to learn with junk food also encourages them to eat it, a point surely not lost on whoever came up with the idea behind 'Hershey's Milk Chocolate Weights and Measures' and its 'cast of miniature clowns struggling under the weight of life-sized Hershey's Kisses.' Perhaps a more appropriate plot line would feature the American healthcare system struggling under the weight of Hershey's Kisses-shaped children." She also says junk-food lesson plans aren't confined to the library, and accuses marketers of trying to distract parents' attention from poor nutritional content by printing "educational" materials on junk-food packaging.

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