Mrs. Obama is having an impact!  Her healthy foods campaign, which has sent shudders through the hallways of  Frito-Lay, Coke and McDonalds, is now  reaching  Kelloggs and other cereal makers through new government regulations on food!

This past Summer big brand cereal makers agreed to set “voluntary” limits on how they advertise and produce sweet breakfast cereals for kids.  The Federal Trade Commission and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, put together their OWN guidelines, which as you might guess, are much more strict.  The food industry is willing to comply to some degree, but not completely and not for a total of five

years.

Regulators want two things:  They want less of Tony the Tiger, and more nutritious cereals in the Tiger’s box!  Particularly, the Federal Trade Commission wants to control how food makers market to kids 2 – 17 years old.

On the inside of the box, the FTC wants Kellogs, General Foods, Kraft and others to make foods for kids that are lower in fat, sugar and sodium, and contain more healthy ingredients in general.  If you are a Count Chocula fan, rest easy.  You get to keep it!  The

government is going to let you keep your breakfast cereal!  But over the next five years, Count Chocula had better become more enriched with…..nutritional ingredients.

Apparently a general compromise has been reached between the FTC and U.S. foodies, and that’s why you will still see Tony The Tiger and the Fruit Loops Toucan enticing your kids to pour milk on their sugar.  Kelloggs can feature the beloved animals, but they have to start doing it less and less on TV.  Social media, print media, and in-store ads, OK for now, and boxes?  They can keep their famous imprints for now.

We are so fortunate to have the government controlling all these things!  It’s worth $15 trillion in national debt to pay folks to measure the contents of our breakfast cereals.

What Mrs. Obama MIGHT consider doing, rather than pushing for more federal regulations on U.S. companies, on people and on their food…..is taking a Prius and driving into the inner city of Washington, D.C. or Harlem in New York.  Talk to the kids to whom she is a fabulous role model.  Suggest to young teens that they can change the economy, the

world, AND their lives by being sexually responsible and putting an end to the highest teen birth rate of any culture in America.  She could also talk to the Department of Education which is entirely useless, and suggest that we build more exercise into our public school programs, and make exercise part of HOMEWORK.  Instead of piling on homework which prevents kids from doing anything aerobic after school.

Finally, if she really wants to reduce obesity in America, The First Lady could launch an anti-crime initiative and a pro-punishment agenda for those who make our streets and neighborhoods unsafe for children.  If kids

could swing from trees, walk to the recreation center or the library, or go shopping at the drug store without being DRIVEN and PROTECTED by parents…..they would probably burn a lot more calories.

Just a thought…

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Filed under: Economy, Featured, Inside The KC, Politics, Sonja Eddings Brown by Sonja Eddings Brown, Oct 14, 2011