School Fundraising Media Mashup: “Kid Fitness” TV?

Growing up in Hawaii hawking ‘huli-huli chicken’ and “King’s Hawaiian bakery sweetbread” as school fundraisers made me realize that all those yummy smells wafting through the hallways would never fly these days. Candy bars and hot malasadas (those puffy fried fat bombs like a sugar-dipped doughnut) were shamelessly hustled island-wide knowing … [Read more...]

Bogus Junk Food Bans & Bait-n-Switch Tactics Proliferate School Policy

Forty-eight hours after I wrote this article about the confusing USDA school guidelines and manufacturers marketing tactics to swap ‘lesser calorie junk’ to replace the worst offenders, today's front page S.F. Chronicle coverage reinforced the absurdity of it all using case study examples of Bay area schools. California has led the way in legislative successes, … [Read more...]

Test Your School Junk Food IQ With This Quick Quiz!

Sublime in its simplicity, compelling in its story, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has succinctly summed up the USDA nutrition guidelines as gobbledygook by dramatizing the absurdity of what is considered ‘junk food’ in schools. 5 questions. No big time zap. It's a fabulous digital media use, worthy of a few “forward to a friend” … [Read more...]

Will Kids Go For The “FryPod?” Brandwashing Nutritious Fare

Dragging their buns far behind the rest of the junk food giants in the compliance arena, Burger King is introducing a crisp first strike on the PR front with The Fry Pod, apple slices cut to look like fries, packaged in a traditional BK sleeve. In a nod to Stanford’s recent study that food packaging not only influences kids’ preferences but makes them favor the … [Read more...]

CCFC’s Susan Linn: $17 billion Spent on Marketing to Kids

We interrupt this High School Musical 2 post (delayed for a day) to bring you an update from Shaping Youth’s latest happenings. Why? Because I said so. That’s right. The parental phrase that seemed to fossilize to near extinction from child-rearing lexicon of yesteryear is being brought back in this blog post…just because I’m ornery. For starters, … [Read more...]