Stop Childhood Obesity!

Childhood obesity is reaching epidemic proportions. Nine out of ten commercials shown during Saturday morning television promote foods of poor nutritional quality (Center for Science in the Public Interest and the University of Minnesota). And with names like Kid Cuisine, Kool-aid and Danimals, is there any question that these food giants know exactly what they are doing? Kids represent an important demographic to marketers and the companies they represent - $2 billion dollars a year to be exact. Kids today have their own purchasing power, influence their parent's buying decisions and are the adult consumers of the future.

Big Food Companies continue to undermine the efforts of parents to teach and instill traditional and healthy eating habits in their children. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission is working to establish voluntary, newly-proposed guidelines aimed at promoting more healthful foods for children. And guess who is fighting these new voluntary guidelines tooth and nail???? Big Food - Dannon, General Mills, Hershey's, Kellogg's, Kraft, McDonald's, Nestle, PepsiCo, Sara Lee and Unilever. These same food companies are calling these voluntary guidelines "irredeemable," "counterproductive," "unnecessary" and "monumentally flawed." They're promoting their own weaker set of guidelines instead AND trumpeting a bogus study that predicts economic disaster if these proposed standards - which are voluntary - are adopted.

Please join the Environmental Working Group and the Center for Science in the Public Interest to get the attention of the CEOs of large food manufacturers and tell them to stop their attacks. Demand today that these food companies use their resources to market healthier food to our children! Stand up to Big Food on behalf of our children, they deserve nothing less! Sign the petition here.

SOURCES:
ScienceDaily.com
CommercialAlert.org
Environmental Working Group