Can Disney Fight Obesity by Banning Junk Food Ads?

Short, sweet and to the point! Well said!!! Agreed 100%!!

It's a start anyway....

It can be helpful as the ads that kids see won't contain sugary stuff that they will want their parents to buy. Ultimately it's the parent's responsibility to make sure their children eat healthier, but this can be helpful.

Trusting Disney's "nutrition standards" makes about as much sense as trusting the government's. People must take individual responsibility for their choices and those of their kids.

They can certainly help... I've got two young kids and it's shocking/surprising how much attention they pay to TV commercials. For now, they're most responsive to the toy stuff. But they're not impervious to food pushes. We try to contain all that, as parents should. But heck, just the sight of the McDonald's golden arches is enough to get them going.

As for Disney, bravo for them to choose to do it themselves. I think that's far better than letting/having the government do it.

Watch their ad revenue tank...

Kids love Disney. Kids want to imitate Disney. This will help them imitate good habits and health. Its not like Disney is taking away your food people. It's just refusing to advertise unhealthy products. Any Republican out there who wants to claim that its a "personal responsibility" issue also needs to recognize that Disney is a corporation in the free market. As a liberal, I respect the value of Disney to the economic system. It creates jobs, provides entertainment, and promotes healthy lifestyle choices with new policy. Disney is one of those "good corporations" who does things right. They're helping the economy grow, and helping our bodies shrink. Good for you Disney!

Love it! If Disney really follows through with this, it's wonderful. We usually can't count on big corporations doing the right thing.

they can't do it alone, but this is a good start!! My daughter watches Disney Junior for an hour or two nearly every day. The shows are lovely... violence free, educational and interactive enough that she spends most of her watching time on her feet, moving her body while she "plays" with the characters. It would make my job easier as a mom if she wasn't also watching commercials for CRAP all the time! I say, BRAVO! keep it up, Disney!

No, but they can sure make a tidy profit by licensing the image of Mickey Mouse onto all of the "approved" foods...

It would not defeat it, but it'd be a first step into the right direction.

But at least they stop ENCOURAGING children to stuff their faces with junkfood. That's a good start.

It's not up to Disney, Government or anyone but parents to decide what we should or should not eat. Our country is starting to look like Communists trying to spy on us, tell us how we should eat and next it'll be who we can sleep with. NY trying to tell us what we can drink is enough already. Let's take back our country from all Liberal government agencies who think they can tell us what to do.

Your disagreement with the government role notwithstanding (as it's a legitimate beef, depending on your political ideology), Disney here doesn't deserve to be conflated with the government campaign against junk food.

They are not deciding what you can or can't eat, they're simply saying they as a company won't be party to promoting it. That's something else entirely. It's their right as a business to decide which advertisers to work with, and saying otherwise is tantamount to anti-capitalism.

re: the Government role vs. parents... I couldn't agree more that parents should take responsibility. The great tragedy, of course, is that they appear not to be interested. Our nation is fatter than its ever been. And here's where that matters, even to those of us who are not stuffing our faces: the obese are nearly as big a health cost as those who smoke cigarettes. The rest of us pay for their indulgences in the form of high insurance costs and high medical costs. Does that really seem fair?

They say that Great Britain is the fattest country in the world.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them way up there in the rankings... they eat like crap there too. But according to the OECD, "fatness" is yet another case where the U.S. can proudly raise an index finger and shout "We're #1!" (UK = 23% obesity rate, U.S. = 33%):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com...

Ha... this just in... it turns out that it depends on whether we're talking overweight or obese and who is doing the research, to say who is #1. But no matter how you slice it, both the U.S. and U.K. rank high in blubber factor:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/02...

http://www.calgaryherald.com/...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...

In the UK weight is referred to as pounds not stone. Of course the British use metric system where as we use the English system.

Thanks... though I knew that. I travel to London often. And the articles above equalized for the difference in terminology, I believe. Did I make a comment somewhere that indicated I might have been confused about that? If so, I missed it. And even if not, thanks for the note.

You're welcome. But what does stone mean? I thought the word for pounds in metric was grams.

BT... Google is your friend, be sure to use it for questions like this. But I'll help you out this time: The Brits measure weight in pounds, just as we do. However, they group every 14 lbs into one "stone" and then count the remainder in pounds.

As for the Brits using the "British" system and us using the "English" system, that's not quite accurate. The system we share is called the "Imperial" system.

But officially, Britain has been a metric country for a little while. However, many still default to the Imperial system anyway (something like we did when the U.S. tried to go metric a long time back).

See here:
http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/...

And for any other questions like this one, try here first:
http://lmgtfy.com/

; )

Thanks for the info I'll look into Google. In the 1970s Americans tried the metric system (I know because I lived through the 70sand I remembered it), but it didn't catch on and was quickly abondoned.

What is the fattest state in the Union?

Ha... I don't know... but I'll bet Google does.

Fat kids, are just kids with an addictive personality (and there are many) pushed into that addiction further. Give them drugs watch them fall apart and re-build themself. Take there shelter and watch thems survive.
I have seen a 3 year old come out alive of a situation few grown men could survive.

though it should really be up to the parents. i don't think nutritional ads would be effective if the parents just go out to mcdonalds every day. maybe have ads that warn of the dangers of eating fast food all the time (and the dangers of obesity).

Parents are gonna have to control that. Besides, who watches only one network for TV shows?

By turning down the advertising revenue from junk food companies, Disney has made a choice to promote healthy eating. Good for Disney!

Banishment has NEVER solved anything. Education goes a long way though.

"NEVER" is too strong a word... things like the banishment of slavery, non-voting rights for women, and the outlawing of certain violent crimes come to mind (all relatively successful)... but you're right that there are lots of historical examples of where restrictions create new problems, worse than any original challenge (prohibition, enforced abstinence, etc.) You're also right about the value of education.

But to educate on a point here: Disney is not "banishing" anything, so to speak. They don't have the power and probably don't have the will or interest to do that. What they're doing is saying that they don't want to run junk food ads anymore. That's all.

You're correct, and as soon as I posted that, I knew someone would give me examples where my sentiment maybe wasn't correct - and I am grateful for those examples since I couldn't think of any at the time. I think I may have jumped the gun a little in my brain before posting because I'm still sort of stuck on the NYC soda size limit ban. As a result, I bristle perhaps a little too quickly when I hear "banish" and anything to do with junk food.

It's a start

This is political patty-cake, I'm sure. Disney doesn't want the Obamass regime going after it and I'm sure they'd like waivers for the Obamacare nightmare. Disney has climbed into bed with the Obamass regime. I am not impressed.

Have they looked at what they offer at their Disneyland/Disneyworld restaurants???? Seems hypocritical to ban ads while continuing to serve the food ...

I've been arguing against most of the "No" votes here, because they all start talking about Disney trying to make junk food against the law, etc... which is not what they're doing.

However, your point is different... and a good one. It will be interesting to see what happens now with the food they serve, too.

They can fight it, but it doesn't mean they'll win

Education and peer pressure from private resources will help more than government taking away our liberty.

If kids are huge fans of a certain disney character and they are eating healthily, then yes, they could. But they can't obviusly stop every single child who watches the shows, because if unhealthy food is presented to them in the household, then of course they will choose to eat it. The best thing a mother can do, is show them healthy things from birth. But if they haven't, it's never too late to start it now.

Companies that sell these types of food add addictive things to the food so people will be "hooked" once they try it...commercials or not, kids brains still want that fix

So it's like a drug?