Have you ever heard anything so stupid??

Question

I've just heard on the News that the TV adverts have to be changed now. They are not allowed to advertise CHEESE, MARMITE or JAFFA CAKES (plus more) during Childrens TV Programmes. As the Do Googers say that they are unhealthy foods!! Is this world going mad?? Yes we know children need a varied healthy diet, but this is just too much. These 'Do Gooders' are going way over the top. Opinions please.

My 5 year old Grandson gets his lunch box rummaged through by teachers to make sure he hasn't got Cheese, Sweets, Biscuits etc. If he has, then they confiscate them. Surely this is a breach of human rights.

Answer 1

Bizzarre indeed. I mean, sure, cheese and Jaffa Cakes might be slightly unhealthy, but marmite? I thought that was a kind of health food! If not, why does it taste like it does? And, c'mon, taking away chocolate from kids is a bit cruel. Still, they can't stop the kids' parents from buying stuff for their children... and they can't stop the kids' themselves from buying stuff at the shop with their own money- or is that the next move? An age limit on Jaffa Cakes? Imagine having to show ID if you wanted to buy a pack!

All in all, yes, an over the top measure, but also a slightly pointless measure. They should be taxed when they do pointless stuff like this to make them stop it. We could call it the 'nonsense tax'. Or would that be going too far?

As for your five year old grandson having his lunchbox searched, this sort of thing definitely sounds like a breach of privacy. What are they going to do, confiscate his chocolate? Teachers can buy their own! If I were you I would write a stiff letter to the school. Taking sweets that the kid's own mother and father got for him, it makes my blood boil... which is quite good in this weather actually. I am wearing a scarf indoors... roll on Spring... and deep fried spring rolls too.

Answer 2

I really despair at the thought of where things are going to end up. It is frightening how things are slowly being removed from our choices. Give it another 5-10 years and junk food (including marmite) will not be allowed on tv no matter what time of the day they want to advertise it. I think junk food will be heavily taxed. The government is hell bent on trying to make us healthier. They think that if we are healthier we won't need hospitalisation or medicines that much. The truth is that we will. In fact, even more so. As medicine makes advances we will rely more and more on hospitals and medication to make us better. People can't even put up with common cold for a few days without over-medicating themselves with useless substances that don't allow your system to get rid of the flu virus. Even if we were all eating helathy foods, never smoked and never had alcohol and there were no environmental pollution we would still rely on the medical care that we have now. There has not been a generation yet to prove it otherwise.

Answer 3

Marmite? Jaffa cakes? You must be an Aussie...lol.

Eh, I can see the reasoning. I've heard stupider things, I'll put it that way. I live in America, and all our kids are fat little wankers, and I can see how that might have some logical connection to the fact that McDonald's is indoctrinating them into thinking their food is good (or even food) from birth. But I didn't know Marmite was such a big heath hazard. I just thought it was disgusting.

In the end, though, I agree with you that the "nanny state" is ridiculous, and I extend that to ALL the things that we try to restrict in the name of "looking out" for people who are too stupid (apparently) to make reasonable choices on their own.

Answer 4

On the advertisements, why do you care? The less of that kind of ****é on TV, the less our kids will beg for junk they've been manipulated into asking for.

As for teachers checking what a kid has for lunch. Absolutely not. This is a complete and utter p!ss take. If a teacher told my child he couldn't eat his lunch because there was such an item in his lunch, I'd take it up with them. I'm the parent and I'll decide what he can and cannot eat.

The only exeption to this would be if said food was causing problems. As in, if I constantly gave him sugary sweets which caused him to go wild. But I'd like to be told myself rather than my child have his dinner rifled through by some stuck up eejit.
.

Answer 5

Marmite's bad for you. ( Salt )
Jaffa cakes are bad for you ( Sugar )
Water is bad for you ( Drowning )
Air is bad for you ( falling through it off a cliff )

The nanny state strikes again.

If I found a teacher rummaging through my kid's lunch, I'd have the teacher up infront of the head, and ask if I could go through thier fridge at home and make sure thay were eating properly and therefore setting a good example to my child ( I'd also demand proof that the teacher had clean hands and was wearing latex gloves.... STAND UP AND MAKE A FUSS !!!!

Answer 6

Which country is this happening in? Sounds like the former Soviet Union simply packed up and moved there.
What do the officials do with all the cheese they have stolen from the children? Do they sell it on the black market? If they throw it out, dont they know there are children starving in Indonesia who would love to have that cheese, and probably wont die of it.
These people need to remove their heads from their posterior orifices and air out their brains, if they have any.

Answer 7

You are absolutely right, and many people agree with you. Another absurdity is the stuff they confiscate from kids they now consider as "weapons", like a nail clipper. There is nothing more dangerous that a sharpened pencil. Why don't they outlaw sharpened pencils from the school environment? I think that "big brother" is getting too big for his britches. Pretty soon ,the American people will have no rights left, and they call Saddam a dictator.

Answer 8

This is good news. The companies who sell junk food rely on kids' 'pester power' to make adults buy junk food basically to keep them quiet. This also makes the children more susceptible to the pernicious effects of advertising later in life and so more prone to buying junk they don't need or, really, want.

As we all know, buying items of any kind to try to feel better about ourselves is an exercise in futility, as any feel-good symptoms from buying stuff we don't really need is very short-lived. Anything which reduces the effects of commercialism on children can only be a good thing.

Down with the capitalist oligarchy!

Answer 9

Don't get me started...but yep, it's another step on the slippery slope on the way to when the government will seize our kids at birth and rear them in the officially approved manner.

I thought that some free people have fought and died in wars over things such as this.

It's very revealing that some of the things my parents and I did 30 years ago are now crimes...such as riding a bike without a helmet, or asking my kid to buy me a pack of cigarettes while he's at the store.

(One of my kid's friends got SUSPENDED from high school because he rolled up a 3 x 5 card and pretended to smoke it...unlit...like a cigarette!)

Answer 10

And why not?
They think cutting out smoking will save lives but to hell with
shoving more pills at people who are already taking 6, 8, 12 or
more different medications, that's different, isn't it?

But, you know, there is one thing that will never be changed
again, Prohibition, laws forbidding booze. It ain't gonna happen'!

Too many lawmakers love it. Yet they're in hospitals and all kinds
of rehabilitating institutions, which cost taxpayers money. How's
come no one is outlawing booze like they try to outlaw
cigarettes?
H-m-m-m-m? How come?

When Utopia is finally reached, it won't be quite what they think it
ought to be and they will change that too.