Fat kids

Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, a national advocacy/research organization based in Oakland, writes an Open Forum piece in the San Francisco Chronicle where he churns out 12 paragraphs condemning television as the cause of obesity in children.

The role of marketing in the childhood obesity problem is significant. A recent Stanford study found that children who spend the most time watching TV, videos and video games are more likely to be overweight. A 1999 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association also shows that exposure to food commercials influences children's food preferences and requests.

According to Lempert, blame for the rise in obesity in America's children should be placed squarely on the media and advertisers. Television and marketing are the culprits.

Nowhere in his entire essay does he mention parents as having any responsibility for what their children eat or even how much television they watch. I haven't seen a TV yet without an "off" switch.