Ronald McDonald has killed more people than Pennywise. Blog #3

Do ads make me fat? Maybe?

I grew up in the 80s.  My Saturday mornings were reserved for Beetlejuice the cartoon, Police Academy the cartoon, Ninja Turtles, Tiny Toons, Inspector Gadget… I loved them all.  I still love them all.  Saturday morning cartoons were an institution.  During those cartoons, advertisers shoved as many ads for sugar and toys as they could down our throats.  If the cartoons were not fun, there was the risk of switching channels.  Ads were entertaining.

I remember going to school after the weekend and discussing with my friends which items must be bought.  Comparing lunches.  I remember wishing my parents would go to McDonalds so that I could partake in the Baby Muppet HappyMeal Toy craze.  It was a craze. I felt like I needed them.  I could only be happy if I had them.  How could I get them if my parents didn't go to McDonalds?  I was left out and felt like everyone knew, because the ad said that I had to have them.

I have 4 kids, and we have gone through the Pokemon phase, where the slogan is literally Gotta Catch Them All.  ALL.  You have to have them all.  Whoever the evil genius is behind that racket is, they have tapped into that need kids have to fit in, and they've made it easy.  They have produced 718 of them, not including their evolved forms.  They have made Pokemon the currency of school yards.

And it works because kids are vulnerable, and that is why I am not playing devil's advocate on this one.  

When I was a kid, I saw so many ads that boiled down to the basic message of healthy=yucky brown or green slop and sugar=rainbows of fun.  Actual rainbows of actual fun. Rainbows occur in nature and they are fruity and probably wonderful.

I remember children in my class when asked what kinds of food they didn't like, the generic answer was, "HEALTHY FOOD", followed by echos of "EeEEEeeewwww".  The message was in cartoons, it was in ads, and it was everywhere.  

I remember, in particular, the ads for bonkers candy.  They were hilarious, they made fun of adults and the candy seemed like some kind of inside joke.  They were violent and great.  The candy tasted like any other blob of sugar, but it seemed better because we could pretend that fruit was falling from the sky.  We lived in the golden syrup era of sugar.  The ads made this candy an important part of fitting in. I knew that red bonkers were the most coveted, and if I had them I was boss.  

When advertisements drown out the voice of reason for children, and put them in a position of being an outcast if their parents don't succumb, they become dangerous.  When the message cries over the voices of parents, and health professionals that sugar and chips and pop are fun snacks, it is ingrained in developing minds.  It's habit before we even know.  Advertising sugar and junk food to children is planting a seed very early on and setting people up with lifelong dependencies, weight problems, health problems, and can easily be categorized with ads for smoking as morally corrupt.  

I believe adults can make informed decisions on their own, but directly marketing false information about products that can destroy health is something that needs to be checked, because vegetable farmers will never ever be able to compete with Nestle or Wonka.