The answer is no.
Here is the story.
Fast food conglomerates such as Burger King and McDonald’s are notorious for their advertising and marketing to kids. It’s so bad that the federal government considered intervening. Alas, well-funded lobbies representing corporate interests promised Washington DC that the industry would self regulate itself and limit marketing to children on its own.
The result of this self-regulation was that commercials intended for kids would include depictions of healthy menu items such as milk and apple slices. Sounds good, right?
Unfortunately, the kids were unable to identify the apple slices correctly because said slices were dressed up to look like fries! Watch this clip…
These finding were published in JAMA Pediatrics earlier this week.
Why should parents care?
Because advertising works. It works especially well on young children. Each time they watch TV, our kids are being manipulated to want junk food and fast food. Attempts to curb marketing to kids are consistently met with resistance from industry, with promises of self-restraint, which doesn’t really work. If kids see apple slices and think french fries, Burger King really didn’t change anything in its predatory behavior.