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Yet another reason to opt out of the grocery store…

Grocery shelf TV ads???

What WILL they conjure up next?

I don’t know about you, but the way the food industry targets our kids with their wares makes me rip–roaring mad.

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10 Responses

  1. I have been telling my husband that the supermarket is the biggest scam out there. We now have a Whole Foods near enough to shop at, we might spend a little more but there was not even one full aisle of snacks, only a few things on an end cap.

    If people went into the grocery store and only bought ingredients, they would be in an out in 30 minutes or less.

  2. I thought commercials at the check-out were bad enough, but this takes the cake. Maybe “cake” was the wrong choice of words, but you know what I mean! I think you pretty much have to leave the kids at home. Between the crazy ads in the aisles, and the Cosmo at the check out, it’s a lose-lose situation.

  3. I see these types of situations as perfect examples of ways to teach our kids. Why not tell them that these are ads, put there by some big mega corporation and they are there to make us want to buy that item. it might not be good for us, but just watching that will make us want to buy it. I want to raise a child that is aware that people are trying to make a buck off of him and will choose for himself, and not what Big Business wants him to buy, instead of just hiding him from that fact. Free thinking is what will continue to progress our society, pretending things like this don’t exist will not.

    I also think that it is entirely possible to shop at a normal supermarket with children and not walk out without a ton of crap food. it is what we’ve done their entire lives, why would they expect otherwise? Sure, my kids like the bright colors of the kid-geared cereals, but that is where it ends. We’ve taught them, and continue to teach them about good food, and why it is so important to eat good food that they aren’t as interested in the bad food. I’m not going to be the one to say that my kids never, ever eat bad food, but they know when they are and they know that it is special. It made my day when recently, my 4-year old turned down some fruit snacks from his grandmother and told her that he would prefer “something healthy”…that tells me that I’m on the right track.

    1. Lindsey, thank you for this. You are absolutely right, and I think that’s a much smarter way to handle it than avoiding it completely. Thanks for your words of wisdom. 🙂

  4. Goodness! We haven’t experienced this yet around our region, (and thankfully we don’t have a Food Lion) but a big thanks for the warning!

    I might just write an editorial to our newspaper “thanking” our supermarkets for not yet stooping to this level and letting them know how many people won’t be petitioning against them because of it!(hint, hint!)

  5. I’m with Lindsey. I started telling my children about commercials on television early on. My son has caught on and often asks ‘what are they trying to sell us now?’ They’ve tried to tell me that I should buy XYZ cereal because ‘it has more fiber in it’ (based on the commercial), but I took a page from something I read on Musings – that there are healthier choices that are naturally better for them, that don’t have to ‘sell’ us on them or add anything to make them healthy. When they ask why other families have XYZ cereal (or toys, or are allowed to have Facebook pages/cell phones at age 8, etc.), I just remind them that different families have different rules. End of story.

    1. Very smart. I try really hard not to make my kids into food snobs, but still to educate them. It’s hard to find that line.

  6. Honestly? I could care less that companies try to target my kids with their ads. I still have the power to say “no!” and I don’t mind saying it 🙂

    I would be SUPER annoyed to have commercials blaring at me every time I walked down an aisle though. I love grocery shopping (well, really, shopping of any kind LOL) and if I had to stare at commercials everywhere I went, the store would lose money because it just wouldn’t be fun anymore and I wouldn’t stick around.

  7. My 6 yo is mesmerized by commercials, so we always have to have “the talk” as Lindsey mentioned above.
    Glad he will be in school FT now so I can at least avoid this one by shopping alone!

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