The other shoe dropped yesterday. Center for Science in the Public Interest and Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (which does not include the sponsor messages that bookend PBS shows) took the first step yesterday to file an anti-obesity lawsuit against Kellogg and Viacom using last month’s Institute of Medicine report and a Massachusetts consumer protection law. The Washington Post article notes:
Though the groups allege that Kellogg and Nickelodeon each caused more
than $1 billion in economic harm to Massachusetts consumers, they are
not seeking monetary damages. Instead, they want the companies to stop
advertising unhealthful products on shows where at least 15 percent of
the audience is under age 8. They also want the network to stop
allowing its popular characters, such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora
the Explorer, to be used to promote unhealthful foods.
Nice how extortion can sound legal. Using the groups math, however,
the two companies cost Massachusetts $2 billion for its children versus
a national obesity cost of at most $117 billion. I thought Massachusetts was a wealthy state and it was poor states like North Carolina that have obesity-related costs of $9 billion.
