Parents, let us safely assume, have been always pretty much the same – concerned about children’s safety, learning, nutrition, clothing. So why the childhood obesity epidemic, and why suddenly, in 2012, in the view of shock jocks and food lobbyists, have parents stopped caring about, being responsible for, their children’s well-being, to the extent that they are to blame for this obesity?
What nonsense. Whenever you hear the words “Nanny State” and “personal responsibility” reach for a metaphorical gun. Here is the argument – parents have suddenly stopped being responsible for what their children eat, and their health status (not sure why, but there it is, inarguable fact), and must be bullied into being so again by shock jocks. Nothing else has changed in society so it is obviously the fault of parents, who must pull themselves together and once more accept their responsibility. Any suggestion of any other action would be “Nanny Statism” and none of us want that, do we (said somewhat menacingly).
But wait, what is wrong with this picture? Society has extensively changed in the way that food is produced, packaged and promoted. When I was growing up in the 1950s there were no fast food outlets. I’ll say that again, NO fast food outlets. There were no supermarkets. There was very little processed or packaged food. People bought, or grew, fresh ingredients, and made stuff. Freshly made bread was delivered to the door each morning, as was freshly made milk.
Nor was there much advertising of food, though there was, of course, of cigarettes, what would have been the purpose? As a consequence, none of us copied each other in eating certain foods, nor nagged parents to get them. Food was, well, just food, and you ate it, of necessity, just like you drank water and breathed. Conversely, glamorous cigarettes, promising a world of maturity and sophistication, were massively taken up by young teens, imitating each other, and the cool cats in adverts and movies.
But about this time, as my teenage years succeeded each other, a change came over the food industry. Corporations realised that “supermarkets” could make far more money than the old corner grocery store (which had also, incidentally, because taken for granted as customer service, delivered to the door, in fact delivered to the kitchen table, groceries too heavy for customers like my grandmother to carry home). The supermarket would also send out of business the greengrocer, and end for ever home deliveries of fresh milk and bread.
At the same time, to make the supermarket work profitably, much of what was sold had to be processed, preserved, packaged, to make it last, to make it appealing, to make it a little addictive. Meanwhile, fast food makers of various kinds were realising that if they created a market for their product by making, for example, a certain kind of hamburger as appealing as, say, Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes, huge profits were assured. Fast food, which also, uncoincidentally, required to be processed, preserved, packaged, and made addictive by the addition of salts and fats.
Convince people to buy food that was convenient for the corporations but bad for them, how could you do that?
Well, cometh the hour, cometh the adman. As early as 1957 Vance Packard (as was Frederic Wakeman in fictional form in “The Hucksters” in 1946) was detailing the sophistication with which advertising was already operating, a world away from the simple informative ads before WW2. The psychology of human beings and how they could be made to respond, unwittingly, to colours, sounds, smells, shapes, shop placement, were all carefully studied and applied. Even subliminal advertising was tested.
In the last half century the sophistication of the psychological analysis in advertising. Whole teams of psychologists examine every detail of human perception and how to manipulate it. Every age and socio-economic group in society is individually targeted with finely tailored advertising. Down to children, where there is both big money, and future customers.
So everything is thrown at children, once and future customers. Every trick learnt over 50 years is beamed at them in advertising blitzkrieg. Not just colours, shapes, smells, sounds, shop placement (though the latter is particularly a science for children) but all sorts of extras.
Most important is to develop the most powerful force in children’s lives – peer pressure. Make something so apparently desirable that its ownership by one child will make it an imperative for others to own and you have a licence to print money. Add in the linkage of products to popular films or games, and make gifts available with, say, hamburgers, and you have a bigger licence. Ensure products made attractive by such methods are placed at children’s eye level in supermarkets and you multiply your sales even further.
So, half a century of development, tens of thousands of psychological researchers, designers, film makers, all aimed at making children both want and demand things from their parents which they must have or their lives will be ruined.
And yet, in the face of this highly sophisticated industry worth billions of dollars, individual parents are supposed to be able to resist the enormous pressures. Be “responsible”. No difference between parents caring for their children 50 years ago and now, but the big difference is the food and advertising industries and their effects.
But after all, reining in this advertising onslaught on children, and its disastrous effects on their weight and health, would be “Nanny State” right?
Yes! Yes, yes and YES! I, too, was a child in the ’50′s. Dad grew all our vegetables, killed the chook at Easter and Christmas; Mum cooked it all from scratch, the baker trotted around the side of the house with a big creaking basket of hot bread every day,…and so it goes.Those wailing about “nanny states” and blaming parents, are distracting us all by blaming the victims of the voraciousness of the bottom line, of big business. I’m not fooled by them. I know whose fault it is that diabetes is going to be the biggest killer of the next generation. You do well to raise this frightening, and frightful issue, David. Thank you.
“No difference between parents caring for their children 50 years ago and now, but the big difference is the food and advertising industries and their effects.” Not so sure about Australia David, but in the US there is a HUGE difference between parenting 50 yrs ago and parenting now.
Mothers home then & working outside the home now, dads working many more hours now than then, parents and young children out at all hours of the night now and not then for just a few examples. And as far as meal prep goes, not as many parents do now as did. There is plenty of whole grain bread, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and protein available but it takes effort to prepare it for a family.
I suppose the ultimate lack of concern for child safety (in the US anyway) would be the approximately 1.2 million abortions (according to the Guttmacher Inst.) allowed by parents last year. Considerably different from 50 years ago.
But I do get your point. Parents need to set a good example for their children and resist the advertising pressure and peer pressure to compromise the benefits of a healthy balanced diet.
Oh come on Eric, Abortions? Really? That’s unworthy of you.
Well, it IS parents making decisions about their children that results in death so I’m not sure why it isn’t relevant.
Illogical nonsense to bring in abortions, a completely separate issue, Eric. David is right, of course, the industry is to blame and govt needs to wake up & implement better regulation so that consumers are not exploited outrageously as they are at present.
I understand your point about straying from the topic Matthew, but I did kind on hone in on David’s opening comment ” Parents, let us safely assume, have been always pretty much the same…” and closing remark “disastrous effects on their weight and health.”
Parental responsibility for the life of their children has changed ofer the last 50 years and If there is serious concern about the “health” of children, then their life is kind of a big deal.
Warning, diatribe follows.
Eric, I have got to tell you that in all my years of blogging, indeed living, I have never been so outraged by a comment than your remark that abortions meant people didn’t care about their children. I am not going to get into a general debate about abortion in a comment thread about the role of fast food and advertising agencies in childhood obesity, a link that you are obviously uncomfortable with. But I will tackle the substance of your comment.
Firstly you quote the Guttmacher Institute on number of abortions. Neglecting to mention that they show a steadily declining rate since 1981. Also neglecting to point out that the actual rate is less than 20 women in a thousand. And also neglecting to mention that the available figures only start in 1973 with Roe versus Wade. What do you imagine, that there were no abortions before that time?
You also ignore the other Guttmacher studies on things like unwanted pregnancies, availability of contraceptives etc. That is, you seem to have no interest in the context of abortions, including teenagers, and families so poor they know they can’t feed another child without their previous children suffering.
You also choose to ignore the context where Republican politicians are trying to restrict the availability of contraception services (both at home and in other countries!), and whose idea of preventing teenage pregnancy is “abstinence”. You also ignore the push to cut services to the poor, support for them (after all as Romney said, these people think they have a right to eat – typical Democrats), public education, all aimed at providing tax cuts for the rich. Republicans it seems are far more concerned about the “rights” of a small bunch of cells, than about what happens to a newborn baby as it grows. The anti-abortion push (which will send women back to dark alleys and coat hangers, but what the hell eh, their lives are worthless compared to the life of a bunch of cells) certainly shows Republican lack of interest in families. Abortions themselves show the concern of women for the rest of their family.
Or do you think that any woman lightly undertakes an abortion just for fun because she hates children?
Your remarks about this have upset other blog readers (as have some of your other comments in recent times). I do hope they won’t be repeated.
I do apologize for derailing your post with my abortion comment David. It is a very volatile issue and I knew as I typed it that I should have simply backspaced. It was wrong of me to insert that comment and I’m sorry to have done so.
I would like to respond to points in your “diatribe” but I don’t want to make your OP something completely different from your original intention. Maybe another time.
I tend to think along the same lines. While it’s tempting to blame the corporations, as David does, I believe that he simply forgot the huge cultural change that occurred round about the same time that he describes. All of a sudden, nanas, aunties, and moms were not standing besides the kitchen stove all day long (and may that change be welcomed!) The corporations then responded to the newly acquired need for food other than available at home.
In light of the obesity problems with youngsters Neo, I’m surprised that you welcome the absence of nanas, aunties & moms from the kitchen stove. If they were there, might not more nourishing meals be provided to children along with a “moderating force” in the home to help reduce the advert influence on the youngsters?
Obesity is highest among lower socioeconomic sectors. Processed food is cheap and laden with calories. It seems that some people care more about children BEFORE they’re born than afterwards? S’ok for the nanny state to regulate abortion but not advertising (brain washing) aimed at children? Make no mistake, that’s what advertising is. Brain washing. American children could tell you more about brand names than they could about history or geography. It’s no accident. The western world are programmed to be consumers from the moment they’re born. No wonder there are so many people decrying abortion in the US. More abortion = fewer consumers.
Couldn’t agree more GW. Brainwashing it undoubtedly is. Commercial TV (with the possible exception of SBS) consists of mindless drivel interspersed with screaming repetitive adverts. And yes, the kids are conditioned to accept this from a very young age. Who was it said that commercial television doesn’t just cater for the lowest common denominator, it creates the lowest common denominator (who none-the-less make wonderful unquestioning consumers!)
I agree Trev, so why not just turn it off? There was “mindless drivel” and
“screaming repetitive adverts” from the very beginning of commercial TV and we simply didn’t allow that part of the content into our home.
Well, one of the “state’s” most important functions is to protect life. Hence, the threats against life should be regulated. Free speech that doesn’t incite is quite another issue though.
Pretty sure the voices decrying abortion in the US are more concerned about life than they are “consumers.”
I’m of a slightly later vintage, but I couldn’t agree with you more. In fact, this issue really gets me quite uptight. There are these violent objections to people being ‘controlled and manipulated’ by governments, and yet apparently no problem with the much more insidious control and manipulation exerted by big companies and their marketing. Its baffling.
Great diatribe David. I notice that one respondent does not care to address the issues you have with him. It is interesting to note that he seems to be happy to judge and legislate against women’s choices (and deny them the “freedom” to have a safe, legal abortion), but not against the freedom big business has to manipulate and make unwell, a whole generation..
Hi Ros, I think it is night in the US!
As I read this, heartily agreeing with you, I anticipated a reprise relating to the cigarette industry which really rounds out the argument. The banning of cigarette advertising along with many other actions such as taxing and health campaigns has indeed led to a drastic reduction in usage since those early heady days.
I imagine the cries of “nanny state” or similar as cigarette advertising was progressively restrained. The alchopops howls about the increase in the cost of living during that debate. The same familiar arguments used by industries at every turn – and perhaps what is most significant parrotted by those who have the public’s ear – Tony Abbot, commercial TV and the popular press.