{"id":2987,"date":"2009-12-02T06:37:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T04:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=2987"},"modified":"2009-12-02T06:37:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T04:37:21","slug":"do-i-love-or-hate-the-cspi-its-a-little-of-both-actually","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/do-i-love-or-hate-the-cspi-its-a-little-of-both-actually\/","title":{"rendered":"Do I Love or Hate the CSPI? It’s a Little of Both, Actually"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the title implies, I have some pretty mixed feelings about the\u00a0Center for Science in the Public Interest<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I love\u00a0the organization\u00a0for the way\u00a0it exposes corporate bad behavior.\u00a0 The CSPI’s recent press release about Nickelodeon is a case in point<\/a>:<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON\u2014Despite its public statements and pledges to help combat childhood obesity, the overwhelming majority of foods marketed by the children’s media giant Nickelodeon are of poor nutritional quality, according to an analysis conducted by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest.<\/p>\n

…CSPI reviewed 28 hours of children\u2019s television programming on Nickelodeon, during which 819 commercials and public service announcements were shown. Of the 185 food ads, 177 had nutrition information available, and 138, or 78 percent, of those were for foods of poor nutritional quality, including Apple Jacks, Cookie Crisp cereal, Airhead candy, artificial fruit-flavored snacks, and Chuck E. Cheese’s, where 89 percent of its menu items are nutritionally poor. Some of the healthier foods advertised included yogurts and pasta.<\/p>\n

Similarly, 77 percent, or 24 of 31 food ads published in Nickelodeon magazine were for junk foods like SweetTarts, Gummy Bugs, Laffy Taffy, Yogos Bits, or Burger King meals. During the study period, three fast-food restaurants were running tie-ins with Viacom, Nickelodeon’s corporate parent: McDonald’s with The Spiderwick Chronicles, Subway with The Naked Brothers Band, and Chuck E. Cheese’s with Bee Movie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have to hand it to the CSPI: nobody does it better. Just looking at that list makes me kinda queasy… so much of the stuff marketed to kids is uniformly awful.\u00a0 Nickelodeon deserves to have its corporate toes held to the fire.<\/p>\n

So far so good… but the Nickelodeon example also neatly illustrates why I sometimes hate the CSPI.\u00a0 They’re great when it comes to identifying problems, but not-so-great on the solution side of things. Basically,\u00a0the organization’s\u00a0response to every\u00a0issue\u00a0can be\u00a0distilled down\u00a0to “consumers are\u00a0too stupid to breathe, so we need more laws to protect them<\/em>.”\u00a0 In this case, the CSPI would like its\u00a0\u00a0Guidelines for Responsible Food Marketing to Children<\/a>\u00a0to be adopted and enforced.<\/p>\n

And this is where the trouble begins… while many of the\u00a0guidelines are (surprisingly) reasonable, this one sent my blood pressure soaring:<\/p>\n

When marketing foods to children, companies should:<\/p>\n

Support parents\u2019 efforts to serve as the gatekeepers of sound nutrition for their children and not undermine parental authority. Marketers should not encourage children to nag their parents to buy low-nutrition foods.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ummm… ‘scuse me?<\/p>\n

This is ludicrous as, a) it’s unenforceable; and b) it presumes a parenting style similar to the one portrayed in this ad:<\/p>\n

[youtube:http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ]<\/p>\n

Ultimately, more parents need to step up to the plate (no pun intended) and supervise their kids’ nutritional choices, but it’s not likely to happen until\u00a0they pay better attention to their own<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0I seriously doubt\u00a0that\u00a0most of ’em are\u00a0grabbing their ankles so their kids’ won’t nag them.\u00a0\u00a0They don’t need Federal laws to help them say “no” to whiny children.<\/p>\n

Sheesh!<\/p>\n

See what I mean?\u00a0 It’s almost as if the CSPIers can’t help themselves.\u00a0 As noted above, I love a lot of the work they do, but hate their tendency to advocate hyper-regulation as the solution to the problems they identify.\u00a0 I respect their passion and commitment, but wish they’d respect consumers a bit more in return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the title implies, I have some pretty mixed feelings about the\u00a0Center for Science in the Public Interest.\u00a0 I love\u00a0the organization\u00a0for the way\u00a0it exposes corporate bad behavior.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,14,17,28],"tags":[344,1848,458,1050,1180],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}