• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, September 26, 2006

Children's minds: All these years we were supposed to be concerned how TV affected those precious developing brainwaves. Who knew what really mattered was their developing stomachs?

Next in a series of regulatory efforts, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and the Federal Communications Commission will explore how advertising and media might be contributing to childhood obesity. So long, Pop Tart ads. Goodbye, Cheese Nips commercials. Hello broccoli and sautéed tofu. Take your medicine. It wouldn't be the worst thing.

As has been urged in this column before, make it easier on those young minds--they have enough to worry about. Stop advertising food products to young kids altogether. Fewer TV ads will cut down on big bellies.

The evils against young health can be stopped--but how come those private organizations don't chip in? You don't hear the Parents Television Council or the American Family Association threatening to picket food companies because of food products with obvious little nutritional value? That would be un-American--and un-tasty.

The FCC wants to explore this kind of advertising. But it won't take much. Just look at those TV commercials that say, "It's good for you." There probably aren't that many. Eating several Big Macs a day isn't the best way to build strong minds and bodies.

Adults can make their own decisions. Food marketers will still be allowed to do their worst in attempting to convince us to king-size our French fries. That's okay. My mind can take it; it is already made up of mature fatty material.

TV pressure groups think it's morally wrong to show sex and violence images to under-age kids. I think it's morally wrong to rewire their brains and neurons to want more trans fats and quick-acting cane sugar.

Make it like alcohol--not until you are 18 or 21. And even then--to be used sparingly. Munch on that.