Is McDonalds the new Marlborough?

This week (which is coincidently National Children’s Week) the QLD government is calling for people to comment about their proposal to restrict junk food ads on television - and particularly to ban them during the hours kids are most likely to be watching.

With childhood obesity a very real and growing problem in our country (we are now the fattest per capita nation in the world!) the proposed ban is timely, if not a little overdue.

This type of restriction on advertising a certain product draws parallels to the 1992 Tobacco Advertising Prohibition which banned all forms of advertising tobacco in Australia.

Which therefore leads me to think about the similarities between McDonalds and Marlborough cigarettes.

-Both have the capacity to kill you
- both are addictive
-both give an immediate positive feeling followed soon after by feeling terrible
-people often lie about how frequent they use both
-people can have both out of habit rather than actual enjoyment

We are already well aware of the health problems related to smoking such as cancer, heart disease and emphysema but is it common knowledge that around 100,000 Australians a year are diagnosed with diabetes and if the current rate of obesity continues, by 2010, 70% of Australians will be clinically obese?

So if we wouldn’t give children cigarettes..?

By Kay Picton