I don’t have kids and of course my memory of TV when I was little is limited to the cartoons I liked. I vaguely remember wanting the sugary cereals that the Bunny or the Captain or the 3 Krispie dudes talked about, but my mother only bought Raisin Bran or Corn Flakes. I wasn’t a bratty kid and she didn’t take me grocery shopping so I was spared.

Nowadays I watch Saturday morning cartoons and dear lord what they show is ridiculous. I feel the cavities forming just watching the cartoon characters and overly precocious kids market such unnatural substances. Most of the time I either mute to volume or change the channel, because it just too much to absorb.

Ok, so keep in mind the blurb about the kids and TV ads, “the sort of diet that puts children's long-term health at risk”.

Now here’s the next story: Food marketers target chronic illnesses - Industry realizes health conditions influence spending

Overweight? Diabetic? Cholesterol out of control? Have we got a deal on a meal for you!

If that sales pitch sounds a little sick, that's the point. Aging baby boomers and rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other health conditions have marketers looking to chronic illness as the new must-reach demographic.

It's part of a cultural shift that increasingly sees health problems as lifestyles rather than diseases. Now the food industry is realizing those lifestyles can have a major influence on spending habits. [source]

Any lightbulbs going off?

The food they advertise to the children becomes the diseases in later life they are now trying to capitalize off of. Calling the pitch sick is an understatement. At the end of the day it’s all about choices, both in how children are raised and in what adults eat, but still, the fact that an industry both promotes and profits from creating then managing the very illness they played a role in creating, is very very disturbing.