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When the US Surgeon General finally got around to acknowledging that cigarette smoking is bad for our health, cigarette advertising was banned from TV and cigarette smoking advertising directed toward children was ultimately banned, including, for example, the Camel cigarette cartoon character whose image was designed to target children. But today it’s still perfectly OK, even cute, for Ronald MacDonald to peddle poisonous, extremely fattening and addicting factory food to children (and precious when he visits them in hospitals). Then when children grow up with compulsive eating problems, we have weighty legislation, such as the “Cheeseburger Bill” which is supposedly for our own good as it will help these fattened-up- on-fast-food adults be more responsible.

Excerpted from page 265 of ‘Death by Supermarket’ by Nancy Deville