• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 8, 2005

Kids need some food to survive--but probably not s'mores. Perhaps TV ought not to remind them as much of their sweet tooth.

A recent report from a Federal agency points out food marketers are doing a bad job with kids, using TV advertising to incite their appetites and thus causing rising childhood obesity.

"Television advertising influences the food preferences, purchase requests and diets at least of children under 12 and is associated with the increased rates of obesity among children and youth," says the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. The conclusion is that all this should stop. Congress should take action if it can't persuade food companies to advertise healthful products.

But who decides what is healthful, what isn't, what is a treat, and what is a food staple? (Pop Tarts is my food staple). Advertising executives say this would be impossible to legislate and is terribly overreaching, if not an overreaction.

Some liken the Institute's report to the groundbreaking government reports on tobacco in the early 1960s that resulted in the banning of tobacco TV commercials. With food it's more difficult, since the results are not clear-cut and there's a great variety of products involved. Not all children will get fat eating Oreos and Ho Hos--though the likelihood they will is strong--and they'll be more susceptible to a host of other aliments to come, such as high cholesterol, heart disease, and diabetes.

Fattening food seems an issue that's a parental concern, like that of kids watching too much or indecent TV content. Food marketers have already been cutting back, but obesity is still high.

Though some give cigarettes and fattening foods equal weight in terms of their hazardous effects on health, the two are drastically different. Right now only cigarettes are illegal for minors to purchase.

Of course, if food was similarly restricted, you'd have material for a Jim Carrey movie.

There might be a scene in that movie where a 15-year-old makes a sly attempt to buy some illegal Mint Milanos. "Do you have any ID?" might ask a suspicious-looking supermarket clerk, played by Carrey.

A nervous boy, played by Haley Joel Osment, reluctantly pulls out his fake ID.

"That doesn't look like you," says the clerk.

And at that moment, the boy would run for the door, ripping open the package and sticking a Milano in his mouth.

"Stop him! Call the police!" might be the response.

The police would arrive. "Drop the Milanos! Put your hands up!" Out would come the kid with his hands up--kicking the cookies in front of him.

It's a crime to have such an appetite. But right now, it's not a crime to tempt certain people--kids--with specific kinds of food, even if the food's effects aren't revealed right away. In this regard, my uncle has always said: "Poison is delicious."