There have been calls to ban the advertising of sugary cereals to children for nearly a half century,

a product that Harvard nutrition professor Jean Mayer referred to as sugar-coated nothings.

In a Senate hearing on nutrition education, he said, properly speaking,

they ought to be called cereal-flavored candy rather than sugar-coated cereals. The Senate

committee invited the major manufacturers of children's cereals to testify, and they initially

said yes until they heard what kind of questions they were going to be asked.

One serial industry representative candidly admitted why they decided to boycott the hearing.

They simply didn't have persuasive answers for why they're trying to sell kids' breakfast candy.

In the madmen age before the consumer movement was in bloom, ad company executives were more willing to talk frankly about the purpose of their ads and how they felt about aiming the ads at the quote-unquote child market.

A quote from the executive director of Kellogg's ad firm.

Our primary goal is to sell products to children, not educate them. When you sell a

woman a product and she goes into the store and finds your brand isn't in stock,

she'll probably forget about it. But when you sell a kid on your product, if he can't get

it, he will throw himself on the floor, stamp his feet and cry, you can't get a reaction like that out of an adult.

Sugary cereals are the number one food advertised to kids.

But not to worry, the industry will just self-regulate.

The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative was launched,

in which all the big cereal companies pledged

they would only market healthier dietary choices to kids.

The candy industry signed on, too.

How did that go?

They pledged not to advertise to kids, yet after the initiative went into effect,

...