Boston Globe Slams Big Food for Pushing Bad Food on Kids

Kudos to Boston Globe columnist Derrick L. Jackson for attacking "trash food marketers" for pushing unhealthy food on our youth, which is contributing to the startling rise of type 2 diabetes in children.

Jackson begins his provocative column, "Diabetes and the trash food industry," with this hard-hitting lead:

"TYPE 2 DIABETES is sweeping so rapidly through America we need not waste time giving children bicycles. Just roll them a wheelchair. Forget the basketballs and baseballs. Give them Braille flash cards. The next thing you know, iPods, Game Boys and Xboxes will come with glucose meters, beeping ‘Sorry to interrupt your song or movie, but it will not continue until you use me.’"

We need more columnists and reporters like Jackson to forcefully drive home the horror of diabetes with bold and seemingly outrageous but inevitably true assertions. For instance, he points out:

"One of the saddest, emerging facts about Type 2 diabetes is how it is robbing children of their childhood. It is well on its way to dropping the overall life expectancy of Americans. This grim world of amputations, blindness, heart disease and kidney failure, once assumed to be confined to those with wrinkles, has descended into the tender world."

Granted, we’ve heard these dire predictions before, but Jackson does so in such a compelling way. Besides, he also rightly tosses some of the blame on us, too: 

"We have created this monster by allowing trash food marketers to prey on our children and by letting our children disappear into video screens," he laments.

While Jackson’s piece is short on specifics about the ways food marketers push their products on kids, his anger over the issue is understandable and totally justified.

In fact, I’ve covered this issue before. For instance, you can click here for information about a recently released study showing how advertising induces children 12 and under to gorge themselves on sugary, high-fat, high-calorie foods.

FYI, you must read Jackson’s sad conclusion to this important column:

"The oversexed marketing and perfect bodies thrown at youth in the name of fashion will become a mockery as the young grow old before the age of 50, with brittle nails, callouses, over-sensitive skin, balding scalps, punctured bodies and of course, lost limbs.

"The nation has not yet had the courage to stand up against trash food and has forgotten how to send our kids out to play. The bodies of our young are becoming trash and there is no time to play.".

Seriously, folks, why aren’t we speaking out against these corporations that are cleverly convincing our innocent young to down soda, cookies, fried crap and other junk food?

As the adage goes, "You are what you eat." So, as columnist Jackson aptly observes, our nation’s kids are eating trash food and thereby becoming trash themselves.

Let’s take some action!

Join my Fast-Track, Kick-Sugar Countdown Program now!

Because of enormous — quite overwhelming — demand, I’ve now made the program COMPLETELY FREE to anyone interested! Just go to www.KickSugarSpecial.com now.

In this program, you’ll get to hear some of the biggest names in nutrition and health giving you advice, tips and much more!

Save tomorrow night for the very well-known Ann-Louise Gittleman — dubbed "The First Lady of Nutrition — who will give you help on how to detox your poor nutrition-robbed bodies.

Many thanks to my editorial assistant Jennifer Moore for helping with this item while I’m coordinating my Fast-Track, Kick-Sugar Countdown Program.