The Federal Trade Commission released a report on the marketing of food to kids. Apparently, food companies spent $1.6 billion to market their products to children and teenagers in 2006. And the verdict of the report: there is no instance where marketing food to kids need to be regulated.

And their recommendation? They urged other food companies to join the industry’s VOLUNTARY and SELF-REGULATED group called Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, established by the Council of Better Business Bureaus in November 2006. There are 14 food giants as members including, Coca-cola, Kellogg, Cadbury Adams and PepsiCo.

Let’s step back a moment. The FTC conducted this report to study the rising obesity rates in the US.  I recognize the complexity of the obesity issue and know that it is not the simply the fault of 14 companies and their advertising. But these companies, and their food, are certainly playing a role in the expanding wastelines of US residents.

So far, the food giants have pledged to either stop aiming ads at children or to promote only what the council calls “better-for-you products”. Sounds reasonable, right? Except there is no definition as to what “better for you” means.

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Oh Manny Ramirez…

I remember Manny when he was on the Cleveland Indians - before he was a household name. The entire Cleveland community watched Manny’s power quickly develop and boy did we have fun seeing it happen. Then he did the unthinkable. He left us for Boston!

Today he moved on yet again, this time to the Dodgers in a last minute trade. Ahh well… such is the world of sports these days.

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1) GOOD Magazine: Oil Addiction

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here>>

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NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft has confirmed (for the first time ever) the presence of water on Mars.

The Phoenix found the water in the form of ice at the Martian north pole.

I wonder if we can use any of it to replace the Texas-sized ice sheets melting away from Earth’s polar ice caps every 30 seconds or so?

takepart by joining the fight against global warming so we won’t have to go hat in hand to Marvin the Martian…

A new pill may make future-tense obesity a thing of the, err... past

Researchers at the Salk Institute have found two drugs that trick the body into thinking it has exercised, reports The New York Times:

“It’s a little bit like a free lunch without the calories, said Dr. Ronald M. Evans, leader of the Salk group.”

The drugs, Aicar and GW1516, which have so far only been tested on mice and Tour de France athletes, may be the panacea the human race needs to avoid devolving into the super-obese present future depicted in the Pixar film WALL-E.

But just in case they’re not, takepart by doing a few exercises.

The New York Times has an interesting list of movies that help folks deal with aging up today. The list comes from Dr. Dennis McCullough and is listed in an appendix to his new book, “My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing ‘Slow Medicine,’ the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones,’’ and updated on his Web site.

Some of the films include more classic works:

• Umberto D. (1952, Dir. Vittorio De Sica)
• Wild Strawberries (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
• Buena Vista Social Club (1998, Wim Wenders)

and some are more recent:

• The Savages (2007, Tamara Jenkins)
• Away From Her (2006, Sarah Polley)

Life is a long process, but too often our cinema is focused on youth (much more escapist). Films about age not only help those who are approaching their elderly years, but they also provide us young folks with some insight into what our older friends might be going through.

My favorite film about aging? You’ll find it after the jump

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Shhh.. don’t tell any of my arty, hip, New York friends but I secretly really like sports movies and I have to say, The Express looks pretty good. Not only does the trailer open with a mention of Jim Brown, my dad’s favorite football player and a Cleveland Browns hero, it goes on to present what looks to be an inspiring story of breaking down color barriers.

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Filmanthropy can be one of a number of things - helping those less fortunate to make films, helping in the preservation of the films and screening classic films for others. While this makes me realize that I am a filmanthropist in more ways than one, Variety has a great little report on some bigger named filmanthropists and their ventures.

My favorite filmanthropist on their list? Martin Scorsese:

Sometime in the late 1980s, Martin Scorsese learned that more than 75% of silent films had either deteriorated or disappeared completely. “It was even more disturbing to realize that 50% of all films made in America before 1950, sound and silent, were gone.”

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Add another disastrous consequence of Global Warming to the list: A Sausage Fest in the Sea. Two biologists at Spain’s Higher Council for Scientific Research recently turned their research to the effects of climate change on the sexual activity of fish (Hey, why not?) and brought back some disturbing findings.

It’s a known biological fact that the gender of many finned species, including certain fish and reptiles is determined not by genetics, but by temperature. But the recent study by Natalia Ospina-Alvarez and Francesc Pifferer discovered that raising the water temperature by a mere 1.5 degrees Celsius can change the male-to-female ratio of fish with temperature-dependent sex determination from 1:1 to a staggering 3:1.

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New entries in Wikincubate, the ever-expanding encyclopedia of ways to get involved with socially conscious issues:

Blood Diamonds

Blood Diamonds Multimedia

Featuring the Nicole Kidman version of “Sparkling Diamonds” from Moulin Rouge
(It’s a safe bet the diamonds from this era weren’t Fair Trade…)
YouTube

Ozone layer depletion

Ozone layer depletion Multimedia

Affordable Housing Multimedia