Submission Number: 00116 

Received: 6/2/2011 9:00:32 PM
Commenter: Tanya Sitton
Organization: 
State: Arkansas
Agency: Federal Trade Commission
Initiative: Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self-Regulatory Efforts; Project No. P094513
Attachments: No Attachments
Submission Text
I'm an occupational therapist. I've worked in poor school districts, providing therapy services to children with developmental, visual-perceptual, fine motor, and behavioral disorders, and in rehabilitation centers treating adults debilitated by the full range of diet-linked "Western diseases." Based on everything the medical community knows about the relationship between nutrition and pediatric disability, and on my own observation working closely with children at risk for poor nutrition due to poverty, it is obvious that nutrition is the first line of defense in promoting normal pediatric development. Food habits set within the first few years of life also have tremendous power to set eating habits in adulthood-- and ALL of the top killers and debilitating diseases, in the US, are hugely mediated by diet (heart disease, stroke, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, Alzheimers). It is plainly irresponsible for us to tolerate the unlimited marketing of unhealthy foods to this vulnerable pediatric population-- in effect allowing the profit motive of Kraft, Nestle, McDonalds, et al to trump the well-being of our children. Knowing what we currently know about the role nutrition plays in health-- for children and for adults-- there is no good excuse to reward (or indeed tolerate) the marketing of junk un-food to our kids. This industry is in sore need of regulation! Please see to it. Thank you.