A Take on NBC Nightly News' 'Fleecing of America'...exposing scams and wrongdoings in the U.S.(though here it's the world).

I find it almost repulsive the way some companies market their products in advertising. Only after LCing have my eyes been opened to the lies that these company spew in order to sell their unhealthy products. I don't mean to sound like a crazed overzealous LCer, but sometimes I just have to laugh at my T.V. and feel sorry for my friends who continue to eat crap and can't understand why they're so overweight. List any advertising you see, there are quite a few but I can't think of a bunch off hand...here's a couple...

-Snickers...It really satisfies you! (that makes me snicker. Too bad they don't tell you it'll last 15 minutes and you'll be even hungrier)

-The Reese's Fast Break bar..."Time to Refuel". It's a racecar driver who is really tired during a race and needs some energy. They make it seem like it's almost a health bar. The name even sounds like a exercise bar. It's Chocolate, peanut butter and 2 types of Nougat! p.s. 30grams of sugar.

-The whole Subway diet. All that bread makes me cringe.

-"Obey your thirst". Sprite. All of the education we've recieved here about dehydration and the need for water, well, I watch that commercial and think 'good idea' and pour myself a tall glass of water.

Anyone else have some that just don't make sense to us LC people???

Kellogg's kick start diet. (they had commerials running for a month AND it is on their webpage!)


Eat a serving of Kellogg's® Special K® or Kellogg's® Smart Start® cereal for breakfast with 2/3 cup of skim milk and fruit.
Replace either lunch or dinner with the cereal meal.
Eat fresh fruit or vegetables for snacks and consume
beverages as you normally do.
Your third meal can be eaten as you normally would.

It's new. It's proven. It works.



Notice they didn't claim it was healthy? This one really ticks me off. Instead of eating a healthy balanced meal.....replace it with a bowl of junk!

All those ads in the paper for those "miracle fat loss pills" that say you can eat anything you want and as much of it as you want and still loose weight as long as you are taking their highly overpriced and ineffective pills (hurry, supplies are limited!) LOL
Think about it...if these things really worked, they'd be headline news, not a paid ad in the Suday paper inserts.

What peeves me is how much McDonald's aims their advertising at children. Every single commercial of their's seems to be about how happy some little kid is about going to McDonald's. Not to mention the "happy meal" with the free toy. A more appropriate title would be the "Guaranteed Childhood Obesity meal". Grrrr it makes me so MAD!!

Also, all the products aimed at children with various cartoon characters on them, and bright colors that rarely ever have anything nutritious in them at all, just a crap loud of SUGAR. "Get 'em while they're young" is the philosophy. Poor kids, they don't stand a chance, when they're sugar addicts by the time they're three.

I don't have any children yet, and I'm sure when I do it'll peeve me even more!!

What I find interesting is how we (TINW) completely demonize smoking and drinking while we're poisoning ourselves with the utter garbage that we eat. Yes, smoking is very bad for you, and alcohol must be consumed in moderation. But look at how we refuse to allow cigarette or alcohol companies to target kids, while we let Ronald McDonald reel 'em in. Didn't they ban the Camel character? I even heard that there's a movement encouraging the film rating people to automatically put an R rating on any movie depicting smoking.

Now I don't necessarily disagree with this - I think smoking should be strongly discouraged - but I'm pretty sure the statistic is that *way* more people die from *diet-related* heart disease, cancer, etc than from cigarette or alcohol related causes. Maybe it's time for a "sin" tax on refined sugar and grains.

I'm generally opposed to the concept of "sin taxes" - I much prefer education and alternative. But even if that weren't the case - we would need to be very careful. Sure, we'll all agree to the "sin tax" on sugar. But you can bet that there will be sin taxes levied on butter and bacon and eggs and red meat and whole milk and heavy cream and all of the other "bad" foods according to the conventional wisdom.

all the "low fat" products with added carbs that are marketed as healthy choices!

"SlimFast: it has all the carbohydrates your body needs"

....and THEN some!

The one that makes me laugh the most...

I believe it's Iams cat food - the diet formula. The ad says it helps to reduce your cat's weight by limiting carbohydrates. hmmmm...the cat food company has got it...the rest of the world hasn't. What an irony.

Wbahn: I'm with you on the sin taxes. Here in Canada, our politicians justify it with the cost of cigarette/alcohol-related disease and injury to our health care system, but we all know it's just a cash cow. It just seems odd to consider and compare the *real* financial burden of our different vices.

There's a commercial on now that I just find totally appalling. I can't think of the name of the product (great advertising) but it's about quieting your kid with giving them something to eat. I think it's a granola/snack bar. The commercial starts off with the child saying something totally inappropriate, and the voice in the background says something to the effect of give the kid this to eat so they won't talk, quiet them with chewing.

Pretty sickening.