Breastfeeding and Broccoli really aren’t of any benefit; they contribute very little to our society and holds very little appeal.

Bottlefeeding and Burgers, on the other hand, and particularly the mass produced, high in trans-fats burgers and marketed to children type, are much more giving.

I refer, of course to a post I did a few weeks back and promised a  “coming soon” post. I said something like:

I know how business operates and know that, in order to keep a buisness functioning and hopefully make a living out of it, you pull out all stops … but that’s for another post (coming soon!)

And here it is!

Now, lets take a look at all of this realistically. There’s a lot of uproar about the way fast foods are marketed, the amount of advertising, who it is targeting and when the adverts are played. There’s a lot of similar concern around the way baby forumula is advertised. There is a lot of research showing the effects of this advertising in relation to not just the purchase and consumption of these items, but also the impacts that consumption has on the consumers.

And, ultimately, society as a whole.

The health impacts alone are phenomonally huge, without considering impacts on the enviroment, landfill, etc etc

What, realistically, are we dealing with?

Let’s look at the advertising and marketing alone … although there are many, many more issues relating to this topic that could be discussed. Manufactured foods is big business. HUGE business. It makes a lot of money for the people who make the stuff. And sell it.

To be quite frank, they really don’t care whether your kids are fat, unhealthy, whingy, whiney or naggy. So long as you buy the stuff.

It seems the lower the nutritional value, the more they push it. They spend BIG bucks on this advertising and obviously have the budget for it.

Interesting to note (well, not really, but I had to start the sentence somehow) that these products also attract a GST, with the exception of baby formula (and other baby foods). GST paid goes back to our government, which in turn uses it for useful things like schools and hospitals and roads and casinos. More often casinos than schools or hospitals, but, again, different post. In a nutshell – they incur tax, governement gets tax.

Boobs and broccoli contribute very little to the government’s coffers.

Now, I may be being more than a little cynical here, but can’t help but think “boy’s club”. You know, big business owners (the manufacturers of baby formula fit into this category) in cahoots with our politicians and all the rest of it.

I just can’t help be cynical when the government some years back ran an ad campaign to promote the consumption of fruit and veg and research showed that, during the ad campaign, fruit and veg consumption increased. This increase was directly attributed to the advertising campaign. Now they’re saying, when asked about fast food advertising, they deny any connection between advertising of certain foods and consumption of foods.

If we look at it realistically, the leaders of our country, at state an national levels, aren’t forking out big dollars for the advertising of low nutrition and/or high energy foods. Someone else is. Yet they’re getting something back, in the form of dollars from the sale of these food items, and the promotion of them. No doubt there’s also a bit of “you scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours” going on as well. But what they do in private is best kept private

On the other hand, promotion of breastfeeding and consumption of fresh foodstuffs is left to those small business owners with very limited marketing budget. And the government!

They have to fork over our dollars to promote the consumption of these foods. Not only that, but they don’t get anything back for it!

Technically, they get lots back from it in terms of a happier, heathier more productive community, taking far fewer sick days, less falling asleep when driving and operating heavy machinery and not contributing to the strain on the publich health system, but that is far more complicated than “We promote stuff and don’t get money for it.”

So, until they can find a way to get money out of breastmilk – and I’m talking billions – or place a tax on fresh produce without being lynched for it, I think we have our work cut out for us.

Personally, I think looking at what we’re really dealing with; the income received from these items, and the relationships between big business and our leaders as individuals or political parties, and working with these real issues then we can get somewhere. Continually going around in circles about the effects of advertising on consumption of foods “yes it does, no it doesn’t” style isn’t going to get us very far at all.

I don’t know what the solution is … well, I do, just getting the decison makers to admit and acknowledge what’s really going on is a different story. I don’t know how to get them to do that.

*sigh*

It’s almost like working with a three year old. Only they’re bigger, louder and more obnoxious, and there’s more of them.

Just like many parents with a three year old, as a society, we don’t seem to be able to say “no” to them, either.

(If you do want to make a difference to the way products are marketed and advertised check out and join Parents Jury Australia and/or sign the petition to help prevent the unethical marketing of those selling infant formula).