Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Obesity Ads (Read 1741 times)


Menace to Sobriety

    I thought about what they said.  I decided that he is not underweight  overweight- but that the "name caller" just has a skewed idea of what "normal" is.

     

    He is perhaps a little on the light side heavy side, but is very healthy.  The fact that you can cannot see somebody's ribs  belt does not make them unhealthy. 

     

     Not to pick on you, but can you see how overweight parents of overweight kids may use similar rationalizations? I don't think many parents want to or are even able to see their kids as "not normal". Therein lies a lot of the problem. All of our "normals" are unique to us.

    Janie, today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go f*** himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost sixty thousand dollars. Pass the asparagus.


    A Saucy Wench

      Fast food is nothing like what it was in the 60's and 70's.  Sizes are tripled and locations are everywhere.  Not to mention that school lunches are actually worse than fast food most of the time.  (Kid you not, the "protein" at one of our elementary school lunches was beef gravy with nary a speck of beef)

       

      And you had it on special occasions.  My parents were a little more "behind the times" than most but I think we got fast food maybe 1-2 times a year tops.   It was a treat.  It wasnt dinner most nights.  And it wasnt preceded by 3 hours of having the TV and a bag of junkfood babysit me until mom came home from work. 

       

      I would guess it is not the food eaten at mealtime that is the issue for most kids.  Its the food eaten not at mealtimes. 

      I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

       

      "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7

      LedLincoln


      not bad for mile 25

        they are working toward a completely "green beef."

         

        Soylent?

         

        I'm not sure of the numbers - does a cheeseburger take a smaller chunk of one's income these days?  I know when I was a kid, eating out, even a burger at A&W, was much more of a rare treat than it is today, and when we ate BLTs at home, two strips of bacon was my allotment for the day.

        dpschumacher


        5 months til Masters

          There was plenty of unhealthy, greasy food in the 60s, but I think the main difference today is that marketing has grown so much more sophisticated and powerful.

           

           

          Also portion sizes (fries and pop/soda/coke/fuzzy water per my niece) are very different today that 40-50 years ago. 

           

          I think one of the biggest factors is that people just cook less.  My in-laws largely eat pre-made food (frozen lasagna, pre-made pasta sauce, canned soup) which is generally full of fat, salt, and sugar.  I believe that the average meal while is likely slightly bigger by physical weight is much more calorically dense.  When you cook things from scratch...a chicken breast with water and lemon juice, a little garlic and rosemary grilled in a pan will have nearly half the calories as the same weight in chicken in premade chicken strips fried. (We calculated it one night.)  Having a baked potato vs french fries of the same weight makes a world of difference.  When people talk about the cost of healthy food vs processed food...compare chicken breasts per pound (2 bucks and change) vs chicken strips (7.75)  per pound or bulk granola per pound ( 5.00) vs. granola bars (8.80 per pound) or hamburger, tomato paste, noodles, cheese (1.25 per serving) vs pre packaged lasagna (2.35 per serving).  Now access to that food is another story.  In Camden NJ you need to go 4 miles on a bus or shop at the one grocery store in town with grossly marked up prices.  But I would argue that the cost of traveling to a major chain and buying healthy is still cheaper than eating preprocessed foods, but it takes more time to cook and it involves nowing how to cook.

           

          I think the second biggest factor is that the many of people are no longer working physically demanding jobs.  While if you combine agricultural, construction, and industrial jobs they out number desk jobs, even the most physically demanding jobs are getting less demanding with increased assistance from machines (nail guns vs hammers, conveyer belts vs carrying bails of hay to the loft, etc). 

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            in the 1970's that I remember, I can't say we ate better meals in terms of quality of fats on the table (I ate more bacon in 1 year back then than I've eaten in the 20 years since college).  I do think there was less sugar being served.  Serve a meal now without any desert and people look at you like you are insane. 

             

            The biggest difference I can think of is movement.  We walked places as a family (shocking I know) and I was on my bike all the time.  I was on every sports team my grade school offered.  It was just assumed that all 13 or 14 boys in the 7th grade would be on the team.  It didn't matter if the fat kid (yes, we had only 1) wasn't as good.  We needed that guy to at least play some position.  Only basketball had room to be choosy about the team as it only required 8 or 9 kids. 

             

             

             

             


            A Saucy Wench

              Soylent?

               

              I'm not sure of the numbers - does a cheeseburger take a smaller chunk of one's income these days?  I know when I was a kid, eating out, even a burger at A&W, was much more of a rare treat than it is today, and when we ate BLTs at home, two strips of bacon was my allotment for the day.

               Median household income

              1974 $11,120  McD's hamburger $0.30

              2007  $52,029  McD's hamburger $0.89

               

              So, yes it is less.

              I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

               

              "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7


              Feeling the growl again

                 

                I would guess it is not the food eaten at mealtime that is the issue for most kids.  Its the food eaten not at mealtimes. 

                 

                It really depends where you're talking about.  These ads are targeted at Atlanta, right?  Have you ever tried to find a grocery store in Atlanta proper?  I stayed there once and I never saw one...and I was looking hard as I needed some stuff.

                 

                Not 3 miles from where I'm sitting now in Indianapolis there is a community center -- which includes a food pantry -- where they pride themselves on being the only one in the city that carries fresh fruits and vegetables.  The reason this is noteworthy is that, despite it being a poor neighborhood where a large percentage of people don't own cars, there is not a single grocery store for several miles.  If you want groceries (ie "real food") you must either have a friend with a car or have time to take the bus to get groceries...and limit yourself to what you can carry back.

                 

                The only food you can get in that neighborhood is from the liquor stores, convenience stores, and crappy restaurants.  The few fruits/veggies the liquor store stocks are VERY overpriced.  How is a kid in that environment supposed to have a good diet?  When the community center asked the kids they were helping what was the one thing that could be done to help them do better in school, the resounding answer was to provide them dinner.  They were so under-fed many nights that they could not focus on their homework.

                 

                This situation is hardly a limited example.  There is not a chain grocery store left anywhere in the city of Detroit.  In many urban areas, poor dietary choices are not always "choices", but can also be limited availability.

                "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

                 

                I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

                 

                  it's true most people in an inner city have limited access to good food.  your best bet for 6-8 months of the year is a local farmers market. 

                   

                  this one surrounded by some bad neighborhoods...

                   

                  http://www.fondymarket.org/

                   

                  but people can grow their own even in the city. 

                   

                  http://www.growingpower.org/

                   

                   

                   

                   

                  DukeDB


                    Do you ever get the impression that Food, as in prepared processed Food served outside the home via time-sucking table-service, is simply becoming a bigger part of life these days?  It's now entertainment and experience, juiced by Madison Avenue and whole cable channels with scores of hours a week of infomercials.  It's hard to pick up the kids from day care and make it through dinner at TGI Fridays in time to make it home in time to watch Top Chef.  No time for the gym, library, grocery store, park.

                     

                    Sometimes we have bananas and fresh peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, washed down with milk.  Nothing green in it, sorry, and it's processed.  But it saves us about an hour of our evening and about thirty dollars compared to even a quick "fast" "food" experience.

                      A Just Fresh restaurant opened near the business park here (north of Charlotte NC) a handful of years back.  They folded in about a year.  Reasonably busy place, but they were half-again as expensive for lunch as fast-food staples McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's (all within 800m), Five Guys (next door), and the like.  I liked their food and I try to eat better, but even I couldn't justify the extra cost to eat there (v. the alternatives I'd already found to McDonalds, et al.).  Look at the McDonalds menu -- the (relatively) healthier choices all cost more than the ultra-processed crap.

                       

                      I'm not sure the obesity cause can be so easily pinned down.  Access, cost, time, ignorance, portion control, denial, marketing, "food science", the real or perceived increase in public dangers to unsupervised kids (every city every year, there's some story about a kid disappearing), more crowded urban/suburban areas with smaller yards and fewer parks, the rise in organized sports (I've met kids who were turned off to soccer--they felt "disadvantaged" by not having played league soccer since they were little kids, like all the good players in the leagues), single-parent homes, two-income homes, jobs demanding >40/week, ...

                      "I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."

                      -- Dick LeBeau


                      A Saucy Wench

                        Yes spaniel, I agree.  I said that I think, or I meant to.  And that is part of my point.  The between meal food is twice as bad as the meal food. Nobody grabs an apple for a snack, there is junk everywhere.  And instead of snack time being a distinct portion on a plate after school (I got a glass of milk with sometimes cookies, sometimes fruit, sometimes cheese and crackers) it is an endless barage of junk mindlessly shoveled while watching TV because there is no adult, there is no babysitter, there is no playing outside, there is just boredom and lack of anything better to do.

                         

                        I see people so fast to point the finger at McD's with blame (hey now my kids get smaller fries and 3 apple slices they wont eat because they dip them in something weird to keep them white).  And at the end of the day, I really dont think having a 600 calorie meal is as big of an issue as the fact that probably an equal amount of empty calories filled the void from school until someone struggled in the door at 7 pm with the happy meal.

                        I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

                         

                        "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7

                        CanadianMeg


                        #RunEveryDay

                          I'm not sure the obesity cause can be so easily pinned down.  Access, cost, time, ignorance, portion control, denial, marketing, "food science", the real or perceived increase in public dangers to unsupervised kids (every city every year, there's some story about a kid disappearing), more crowded urban/suburban areas with smaller yards and fewer parks, the rise in organized sports (I've met kids who were turned off to soccer--they felt "disadvantaged" by not having played league soccer since they were little kids, like all the good players in the leagues), single-parent homes, two-income homes, jobs demanding >40/week, ...

                           

                          Society and the media are big on discussing it, but there's been no overall will to make changes in society as a whole. I don't know how you do that, but at some point it has to move beyond the talk stage.

                          Half Fanatic #9292. 

                          Game Admin for RA Running Game 2023.


                          A Saucy Wench

                            I think there are definitely two classes of childhood obesity.   

                             

                            The one the ad is targeting is the class that I think can benefit the least from ads designed for guilt.  Inner city, lack of resources, lack of access to food, etc. 

                             

                            And the ones that I know personally.  Where they have the knowledge, the money, the resources, the food access.  They are obese and they are passing it on to their kids because ?  Because it is easier than changing themselves?  Because they have emotional issues with food?  Because it isnt a priority?  Because they are in denial?  Maybe they are the ones the ads can reach.  I dont know.  Maybe these are the ones that would have been the ONE kid 30 years ago anyway.

                             

                            There is plenty of obesity right here in my town.  And not a hell of a lot of poverty associated with it. 

                             

                            Am I being too lax with excusing one group and charging another?

                            I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

                             

                            "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7


                            an amazing likeness

                              Society and the media are big on discussing it, but there's been no overall will to make changes in society as a whole. I don't know how you do that, but at some point it has to move beyond the talk stage.

                               

                              Doesn't mean I don't agree with your sentiments, but Good Grief, seeing what happened with just trying to change light bulb preferences, I can't imagine what it will take to change food selection. Wow, unfathomable. Unimaginable.

                               

                              On the other hand, in my life time smoking habits are radically different.  Like changing the perspectives on smoking's impact, I seriously believe the food solution will have to skip a generation (or two) and the true target for the message needs to be today's 5 year-olds.

                               

                               

                              (I know you're Canadian and this doesn't apply to your kind, caring people and attentive government...Wink)

                              Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.

                              keeponrunning


                                Funny time to see this as I was just walking around my university's student centre attempting to find something healthy for supper.  Very very little choice for healthy food, and what was available was very expensive.  $0.75 for a banana?  You can buy them for $0.59/pound at the grocery store.  I paid over $5 for a small amount of grilled vegetables, a piece of pizza would've been well under $4.  Cost surely isn't the only factor but it is definitely one.  

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