Did you ever carry pepper spray, or Mace as it was known when I was in college?  It was pitched to women as a sure-fire way to stop a predator in his tracks.  Just spray it in an assailant's eyes and he'll stumble around yelling "Ah, my eyes! my eyes!" long enough for his prey to flee.

There is a new protection device available from an Arizona company called Shieldher.  It is, I kid you not, a personal taser, the TASER® C2.  To soften the outright horror at the thought of our already over-armed streets filling with more weaponry, the Shieldher taser comes in innocuous and feminine colors like metallic pink.  I imagine this is meant to discourage macho would-be criminals, who might otherwise be inclined to carry one of these weapons to subdue recalcitrant victims.

Four years ago, I got wind of a new ad campaign by the Department of Health and Human Services promoting breastfeeding.  The new national campaign, was controversial and featured what some thought were scare tactics in order to improve the country’s abysmal breastfeeding rates.  Soon after the ads were developed, I heard through the grapevine that the formula industry had been pushing hard for the ads to be changed, citing reasons such as inducing guilt in new mothers.  So, the ads were changed to a “more friendly images of dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream scoops, to dramatize how breast-feeding could help avert respiratory problems and obesity” as a direct result of the formula industry’s influence.  

Some of what has transpired has come to light in an article on MSNBC.com today.  

The formula industry's intervention -- which did not block the ads but helped change their content -- is being scrutinized by Congress in the wake of last month's testimony by former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona that the Bush administration repeatedly allowed political considerations to interfere with his efforts to promote public health.

There is a wonderful, quaint candy store in the heart of our little downtown area. I love it. My kids love it. The problem? They sell candy cigarettes. I didn't notice, but my 5 year old daughter sure did. She was mortified as we've been teaching her that smoking is a no-no. Below the fold is an email exchange between the owner and me.

So, what can we do about all this?

As I finished the book, Food Marketing to Children and Youth, the recommendations section largely dealt with the need for government regulations and national social marketing campaigns to help educate our children on nutrition and physical activity.

This is great, but I don't think we can wait for private industry to stop wanting to make more money from selling crap to all of us. I don’t think we can even afford to wait on the government to tell private industry not to make so much money off selling crap to our kids and us. Definitely not under the current administration.

So, since hell is not going to freeze over anytime soon, we have to worry about our kids in the meantime. These are my recommendations after spending a solid month plowing through all this research. Call it my Manifesto. Take it with a grain or two, or a shaker, of salt. Apply liberally, or create your own recipe for change.

Part II: When the TV is off, the marketing is still on

There are several facets to food marketing to children and youth. Part I covered television advertising. In Part II, I want to discuss the other facets of marketing that are less obvious and less visible to parents. These tactics account for the other eighty percent of food marketing to our children.

Understanding all of these facets is important, as today’s marketing is moving toward an integrated approach. In other words, all the different "channels" where you see marketing information from television to toys, to the store display to the product package all carry the same message.

Part I, The Small Screen with Big Impact

It’s great timing for this last segment of my series on childhood nutrition. The Kaiser Family Foundation just released its report, “Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States.”

The report echoes much of the information in the Institute of Medicine’s book, Food Marketing to Children and Youth. Both are good reads for parents. The Kaiser report focuses mainly on television ads to children. The numbers are equally as frightening as obesity statistics. For example, based on a national average viewing time of four hours per day for a child, over a year’s time he is exposed to nearly 30,000 commercials.

Part II: Outside Influences

I first started this article series when I realized how many other influences there are on my child’s diet. I was trying to buy plastic food and a grocery cart for my child. The amount of branded fast food "toys" and junk food options were astounding.

Up to this point, I had had the illusion of control. What hit me like a ton of bricks, as I stood in that toy kitchen and food aisle, was how brief that period of control really was.