NEWS: Kellogg to Stop Marketing Breakfast Crack to Kids

CULTURE: Kellogg to Stop Marketing Breakfast Crack to Kids

Waking up and knocking back a bowl or two of Frosted Flakes for a sugar rush before school is an American kid tradition. The culinary ritual is reinforced during Saturday morning cartoons as all sorts of wonderful creatures frolic on the TV screen: talking tigers, colorful toucans, and tiny elfs whose onomatopoetic names evoke the wondrous sounds of milk-soaked, crisped rice. Now pressure from consumer groups has moved breakfast food giant Kellogg to be more responsible in pushing its product to kids.

While today Kellogg may sell cereals whose health benefits to kids are debatable, the corn flake economic powerhouse was actually founded on principles of sound nutrition and healthy living. Dr John H Kellogg was a Seventh Day Adventist who ran a health clinic in 1876 Battle Creek, Michigan ( a 19th century forerunner to today’s chic health spa).

Kellogg and his brother eventually invented the corn flake and soon their cereal business became one of the most successful in the world. Surprisingly enough the man whose company would one day give birth to the Pop Tart was in his way a pioneer of that hallowed health practice: the colonic.

Its good to know massive companies like Kellogg can be effected by citizens groups who spread nutritional awareness. While the new policy probably won’t have much of an impact (the mind-numbing rush of a fruit loop needs no boost from a marketing campaign), the announcement does indicate that consumers can still influence the policies of large food corporations.

Who's buying the groceries, the kids or the parents? If the parents buy a six pack of budweiser and gives it to the kid, then it must be budweiser's fault, right?

But that would mean telling Little Johnny and Susie no! It's so much easier when the guvmint and corporations raise the kids.

Elves, dammit.

Kellog's cereals were good for you before it became a brand, I suppose. Then making money became a factor and they started catering to the sugar rush addicts.

...I want to try the electrified water pool.

There is no surprise here that many American parents have long abdicated their responsibilities for child rearing to corporations and the government.

You've got to see "The Road to Wellville", all (satirically) about Kellogg and his sanitarium. It's hilarious.

Ohmigod!

If we are pressured to stop buzzing up children with sugary/chemically glop disguised as "food," then our friends in big pharma won't be able to peddle their parents the drugs they need to calm them back down again.

Why, this could seriously hamper our ability to run amok!

Man, I remember when the sugar content of a children's breakfast cereal used to be a selling point.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

gawd im gonna miss the rush of my mornig .. lunch and most times dinner cereal

Step one: Get rid of your TV. Kids won't know or care they're missing out on Saturday morning advertisement blocks if you don't allow that shit into your home in the first place. Everyone I know who have kids and no television have astoundingly calm, well-mannered kids with attention spans and who like to read and make art and play outside.

Step two: Teach responsible, healthy eating habits. Remember that one friend everyone had when we were younger whose parents never let him eat a bunch of sugary shit, and he was upset about it as a teen, but now as an adult he's the only one in our group who's still healthy and in shape?

+1

My parents never let me have this sort of garbage, it was always corn flakes, shredded wheat, etc. Hell, I barely even remember asking for the cereals that were advertised during cartoons.

They can pry my sugary cerels out of my cold, dead hands!

I mostly agree with you, but Budweiser doesn't advertise to seven year olds. I watched a kid have a meltdown in the cereal aisle the other day because his mom wouldn't buy him some cereal he undoubtedly saw on TV.

The mom just let the kid scream and led him down the next aisle, but I know there are parents out there that would put it in the cart just to avoid a scene.

We can all wish that people raised their kids better than that, but surely corporate responsibility isn't a bad thing, right?

Look Daddy, the Horsies are playing football. Look at the frogs and ferrets daddy.

Part of the problem with kids today is the adults are so damned stupid that commercials have to be on a sixth grade level for a good portion of the population to understand them.

My kid eats sugary cereals. She also watches TV. She also reads, goes outside to play, and uses the very creative imagination she has. We have so many "consumer groups" watching out for our kids, Darwin's Theory can't work.

It won't be long before every kid is required to have his own bubble so that knee and elbow scrapes don't happen anymore. OUTLAW BICYCLES, MY KID FELL OFF OF ONE AND THEY ARE DANGEROUS! How can someone manufacture such a machine, i am going to SUE!

Raising kids is NOT that hard. You teach them what NO means, you discipline them if they create a scene and you teach them that YOU are the boss. If you never taught your kid to look both ways before crossing the street and he/she gets mowed down by a car doing the speed limit, it's NOT the driver's fault, it's YOUR fault for not teaching your kid to look both ways.

I only got a box of sugary cereal on my birthday...usually cornpops. So that was like...2 boxes a year cause my sister got one on her birthday too and we shared. Yeah, that's it...

Damn straight, couldn't have said it better myself.

It all depends. My mom taught responsible, healthy eating patterns and denied me junk foods like sugary cereals except in very special circumstances. The end result was that once I was buying my own food I went nuts on everything I'd been wanting so long. I eventually settled back down, but I'm still struggling finding a decent balance between price, convenience, taste, and health.

I do think individual responsibility is important. Just as important as corporate responsibility. Does anyone really think this is a bad move by Kellogg?

I do.

People choose how to live their life. Corporations make money by selling things. Be it sugary cereal or firearms.

Part of being Free is being able to eat like shit! If i want to go out and eat a box of Sugar Coated Sugar Pellets i should be able to go out and BUY a box of sugar coated sugar pellets, without the corporation worrying about getting sued because they need a crane to lift me out of my house.

How i choose to live is my choice, i don't need a consumer group, or a health nut hanging over me screaming "It's going to kill you!". Once again, Darwin's theory will take care of me. The consequences of MY choices are my responsibility. Not a corporations, not anyone else. I CHOSE to eat sugar coated sugar pellets til i had a massive coronary and died, that is the consequences of MY choices.

So many people are so busy being in other people's business that they can't take care of their own responsibilities! Live your life the way YOU want to and don't attack someone else for the way they choose to live THEIRS!

Kellogg isn't going to stop making sugary cereals, they're going to stop advertising them to children.

Consumer groups are there to tell another side of the story. Nutrition information wouldn't even be listed on the box if it was just up to the corporations. You're able to make an informed decision, and choose whether or not you or children eat what you eat because of actions taken by individuals, consumer groups, and legislation.

Only 12g of sugar?! The horror! I'll have to pour coke over my lucky charms now!

Okay i didn't realize that they were going to continue production, so that destroys half my rant.

I just get irritated with how everyone expects special treatment. I am personally an alcoholic. Do i think budweiser should stop advertising beer because i am an alcoholic and other people suffer from it? No. My choices to consume made me an alcoholic. I have the ability to choose to stop consuming and overcome alcoholism, i don't think a major corporation should stop advertising it's products because of a certain group of people.

and i still say that a good portion of the population doesn't even read/care about the nutritional facts printed on the box. If they did, Twinky and Ho Ho sales would plummet.

I have a simple answer to all things: moderation. Most foods, beverages or products can be unhealthy if taken to excess, but if one takes them in moderation there will be no problem...I think this is the best thing that one can teach to children, rather than saying this is bad, don't ever eat it, drink it, I think one should educate them on the concept of moderation...