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Quote by Jeffrey Kluger

“No one ever pretended that shopping for anything is a rational experience. If it were, would there be Fluffernutter? Laceless sneakers? Porkpie hats? Would the Chia Pet even exist?”

Quote by Jeffrey Kluger

Author

Jeffrey Kluger
Jeffrey Kluger

Jeffrey Kluger is an American writer born in 1954. He is known for his in-depth reporting on science, technology, and cultural phenomena, and has won numerous awards for his work. Kluger has served as an editor and columnist for several prominent media outlets, including Time magazine and Scientific American. His writing style is characterized by clarity, wit, and insight. more

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“The food industry is spending almost $2 billion a year marketing directly to children and teens. We know that those ads lead to children demanding certain brands, and we know that food and drink marketing gets all of us to consume more calories. If we're going to address diet-related illnesses, talking about marketing to kids is a key step. There should be places like schools that are protected sanctuaries from commercialization and from advertising, especially when it comes to kids' health.”

“Just in the past couple of years, there's been pushback against some of that marketing, as parents have gotten really upset. Now we're seeing Coke and Pepsi kind of shape-shifting. Instead of doing these very explicit marketing deals, they are getting into schools in much more hidden ways - things like My Coke Rewards, where they encourage schools to push their student body to purchase Coke products, in exchange for points that go toward various products for the school. It's a way for these companies to get in front of kids, presented as a form of charity.”

“When people hear about legal restrictions on marketing and advertising, often the response is: Aren't you just being a food nanny? Isn't that government playing too much of a role in our lives? When people have that response, they're forgetting the extent to which what kids are eating and drinking is having as much of an impact on their lives as, say, if they were starting to smoke cigarettes as teenagers. Diet-related illnesses are causing nearly as many deaths as tobacco-related illnesses.”

“I think oldest children have a different mentality or know that there were different expectations of them, and I was not only the oldest child - I was the oldest grandchild of 18 grandchildren. I definitely grew up feeling like there were a lot of people who expected me to do something. But it was a very conservative family, very conservative neighborhood. I'm talking mid- to late '60s when I was growing up there, and so if I had stayed in the Boston area, I think my life would have been radically different.”

“My generation was going to change the direction America took. I was completely convinced that we would have a very different kind of society as a result of the protests that I was part of, and I think that's partially true. We obviously never really got to what many of my generation believed was possible, but the amount of change I've seen in my lifetime, both social change and political change, is staggering. I think my generation can take a little bit of credit for that by just opening up the conversation.”