Europe beats U.S. by one.
April 2005 | Evergreen News
Protecting Kids from Obesity
Europe: 1, U.S.: Big Fat ZeroIt is no secret the Bush administration holds Europe in less than high regard. Time magazine reported the Bush people frequently call their European allies “Euro-wimps."
Well, guess what? When it comes to standing up for kids, those “Euro-wimps” have shown a lot of guts of late. The Bush people, to put it politely, haven’t.
For those who have been out of the cultural loop, the U.S. marketing industry has launched an all-out war on kids. It is saturating their lives with come-ons for junk food, junk entertainment, junk anything. Not coincidentally, kids have become hosts to an epidemic of marketing-related diseases: obesity, type-II diabetes, a general inability to focus their own attention.
Just last month, a major new report decreased life expectancy numbers by five full years for today’s kids because of rampant obesity. That’s the first such decrease from one generation to the next in two centuries.
On top of that super-sized development, there is chronic strife and tension in American homes as kids whine and nag for things they’ve been seduced to want. Market research companies actually teach corporations how to tap this “nag factor."
Parents do their best to cope. Many have gotten rid of their TVs. But the commercial seductions are everywhere now, even in the schools. The dominant institution in our society, the corporation, has injected itself into the relationship between parents and their own kids in a major way. Parents can’t fight this battle by themselves. They need some help.
One would think that the Bush administration, with its family values and macho swagger, would be eager for the challenge. Instead it has cut and run.
As for President Bush, he has said and done very little on the issue. The administration has talked about exercise, which is fine, as far as it goes—which is not near far enough.
For a long time, Europeans thought that childhood obesity was an American problem. But as marketing has gone global, so too have the pathologies connected with it. According to the International Obesity Task Force, childhood obesity has “increased steadily” in Europe during the last two to three decades. Close to one in five school-age children in the European Union are overweight.
Unlike the Bush administration, however, the Europeans aren’t cowering from the task. On Jan. 1, 2005, Ireland banned television advertising for fast food and candy. John Reid, the U.K. health secretary, has said he will call for a ban or restrictions on junk food marketing to children if the marketers don’t show some self-control. And Markos Kyprianou, the European Health Commissioner, has drawn the line in the sand. “I would like to see the [food] industry not advertising directly to children anymore,” he told the Financial Times last month. He gave the industry a deadline of one year to regulate itself or face legislation.
Kyprianou and his colleagues have faced plenty of industry pressure, just as public officials do here. The difference is they are standing up to it.
Political courage is seen in the willingness to be tough with your friends. For Democrats, that means primarily organized labor. For Republicans, it means big business, and the commercial assault on children is a case in point. The junk-food industry has been among the administration’s biggest supporters. Among those who bundled $200,000 contributions to the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign were high executives or lobbyists for Coca-Cola, Safeway, Florida Crystals (a big sugar company) and Altria, which is majority owner of Kraft Foods.
Those who bundled $100,000 included executives or lobbyists from U.S. Sugar Corp., Nestle USA, Coca-Cola Enterprises and Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell and KFC.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush told Congress, “Over the next several months, on issue after issue, let us do what Americans have always done, and build a better world for our children and our grandchildren.” If the president really means what he says, he might start by expelling junk food from the nation’s public schools, and instructing his Federal Trade Commission to tell the junk food marketers to butt out of the relationship between parents and their kids. —Jonathan Rowe and Gary Ruskin
Jonathan Rowe is a founder of the California-based Tomales Bay Institute; Gary Ruskin is executive director of the Oregon-based Commercial Alert.
Slowing It Down, Simplifying in Phinney
A trip to Oakland, Calif., of all places, is making a difference in the Phinney neighborhood. When Cecile Andrews and her husband Paul traveled to San Francisco’s companion city, they met folks who were using an eco-village model to form community. Every night there were two or three choices of activities, from yoga night to playing Scrabble.
Cecile Andrews says the trip reminded her how much she missed community, especially “the small ways, like knowing your restaurant waitress or your librarian.”
Andrews was already involved in “simple living” as author of the book “The Circle of Simplicity” (HarperCollins, 1997).
Hundreds of eco-villages are being created around the world. Usually, they form as intentional communities, adding environmental concerns like how to live in sustainable ways: growing organic foods, conserving energy, reducing use of things.
The Phinney neighborhood has a history of community with the Phinney Neighborhood Association and the Phinney Center. Andrews went to PNA and proposed Phinney EcoVillage and received its support.
"The motto of Phinney EcoVillage is ‘Simpler, Slower, Smaller,’ ” Andrews explains. “As people slow down they are more in control of their lives and are more likely to live in a sustainable manner … so many decisions are not thought out.”
For her part, Andrews encouraged more walking, more visiting, more gardening, more bicycling. Neighborhood walks began. The walkers stopped and talked to other Phinney neighbors.
Then, Andrews initiated certulia, Spanish for “continuing conversation.” Every Friday afternoon from 5 to 7 p.m., people gather for wine, cheese, and conversation.
So far, 20 regulars and up to 200 interested neighbors have come to at least one event. A website has been established at www.phinneyecovillage.net to exchanges ideas and talents such as such as how to fix bicycles or organic gardening know-how. People can call each other for advice or to share similar interests. —Miryam Gordon
We Kid You Not: Hard-hat Goats at Work
As GreenWorks Realty prepares to develop its first housing project, you may see an unexpected sight in Newcastle during early May. GreenWorks is a “green real estate” firm taking a number of unique steps to make sure their development project starts green and stays that way.
One of these steps is an invitation to open its 6.5-acre site to Healing Hooves, some 160 hungry goats who will clear the overgrown vegetation by eating it. That is, ahem, no kidding, a lower-impact alternative to bringing in heavy equipment to do the same job.
The goats are expected to dine on the site for approximately two weeks to both protect an environmentally sensitive site and minimize site disturbance.
Last summer, GreenWorks held an “eco-charette” (site design planning) in which the development team of architects, a civil engineer and City of Newcastle planners met to discuss critical issues.
The project follows a low-impact development philosophy coupled with a high-density plan for cottage/community-style housing. They plan to sell lots directly to green builders that will be required to meet Built Green standards. It is estimated that the 30-plus home community will be completed in 2006.
For more information, visit www.greenworksrealty.com and www.healinghooves.com. —Heather Nordell
Your Paycheck and Your Blog
Consider it a warning shot across the bow, er, keyboard. Former Google employee Mark Jen was fired after his bosses reviewed his blog (or Web journal) entries that speculated about Google’s finances. While most companies have written policies to prevent such acts as visiting porn sites or forwarding socially unacceptable jokes, blog policies are rare.
You have to figure that will change. The Pew Internet and American Life Project reports in its latest survey that 27 percent of American adults who use the Internet read blogs. Seven percent author them.
Thanks in large part to Google itself, surfing the ’Net for employee names and their blogs is easier than ever. That’s step one. Step two is action.
“Because it’s less formal, you’re more likely to say something that would offend your boss,” says Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, a workers’ rights group.
Jen told the Associated Press he got fired by Google for blogging about life at the company, even though he said “it’s all publicly available information and my personal thoughts and experiences."
Upon reflection, Jen told AP he understood Google’s concerns, given readers’ tendencies to read between the lines and draw conclusions based on “random comments I made.” He said he hoped his case would prompt workers to “talk to their managers at length about blogging before they begin.” In case you are thinking, Hey, what about the First Amendment? sorry, no luck there. The civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation clarifies that the First Amendment only restricts government control of speech, not private employers.
On the other hand, some companies encourage blogging or acknowledge it as part of the present-day mediascape. Microsoft officials estimate more than 1,500 employees are bloggers on official company websites, while Sun Microsystems Inc. offers server space for personal blogs and advice on making your blog interesting.
Just be careful about what might prove too interesting for your employers. —Andrew Mulholland
A Third Year Is No Charm in Iraq
We’re into year three of the Iraq war. SNOW (Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War, www.snowcoalition.org), the Seattle area peace coalition, held a second anniversary rally in downtown Seattle during March. SNOW is composed of both nonprofit organizations and ad hoc neighborhood groups who continue to hold sign-waving meetings, create educational leaflets and display information at local farmers’ markets.
April brings two SNOW-supported events to the Seattle area, a film and an exhibition. The film, “Voices in Wartime,” is a documentary produced by local filmmakers that will be shown in all Landmark Theater venues. It opens in Seattle on April 15.
One of the voices in “Voices in Wartime” is Sam Hamill, a Port Townsend-based poet. Hamill had been invited by Laura Bush to the White House to celebrate American poets like Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson. Hamill did not accept the invitation, but it provoked him to put out a call to poets to compose poems about the war. He received more than 7,000 poems, and started the organization Poets Against the War. Hamill is one of many poets represented in this feature-length film.
Plus, SNOW is supporting the “Eyes Wide Open” exhibit April 9 and 10 at Seattle Center Fisher Pavilion and in Tacoma at the UW-Tacoma Campus on April 12 and 13. The widely acclaimed exhibit on the human cost of the Iraq War features boots honoring each U.S. military casualty, a field of shoes, a Wall of Remembrance to memorialize the Iraqis killed, and a display exploring the history and consequences of the war.
For more information on the film, visit www.voicesinwartime.org. For more on the exhibit, go to www.afsc.org. And for more about Sam Hamill’s organization, check out www.poetsagainstthewar.org. —M.G.
COUNT ON IT
Stats you will want to tell your friends
18 percent of American adults cited the Internet as one of their two main sources of news about the presidential races, compared with 3 percent in 1996. The reliance on television grew slightly to 78 percent, up from 72 percent. (Pew Internet and American Life Project)
43 percent of Americans who got campaign news over the Internet visited sites of major news organizations like CNN and The New York Times compared to 24 percent who browsed Internet-only resources such as blogs. Another 28 percent got their political news from host sites, such as AOL, that use mainstream news services such as Associated Press and Reuters. (Pew)
Only 3 of the top 30 most popular political blogs are posted by women (Blogosphere Ecosytems)
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