Judy Emerson joined the Register Star 1985. Her general interest column, which focuses on local people and issues, runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: jemerson@smtp.registerstartower.com | Phone: (815) 987-1336

I should have known that my junk food habit would someday catch up with me.

It did Friday after I confessed in a column about the proposed statewide ban on selling junk food in schools.

My comeuppance came in the form of a good-natured call from Dr. Hans Diehl, the California-based founder of the Coronary Health Improvement Project, or CHIP, a popular diet and lifestyle program that was launched in Rockford almost five years ago.

A call from a recognized deity of good nutrition was disquieting for this food sinner. Diehl suggested nonjudgmentally that I could get a fresh start by replacing the worn strip of carpeting connecting my desk with the vending machine in our break room.

Before we ended our chat, I’d confessed to consuming every possible type of Christmas cookie. Diehl kindly absolved my guilt with a comment about moderation and good choices in the face of seasonal temptations.

I had questioned in the column whether Illinois really needs a state law to address the sale of junk food in public schools. We shouldn’t need a law, of course, but common sense takes a hike when cash-strapped districts like Rockford belly up to the buffet of corporate cash.

ROCKFORD ISN’T THE ONLY district to have sold vending rights to a soft drink company — Coke got us for $7.5 million over 10 years.

“I think that’s morally questionable if not plainly wrong,” said Diehl, a cardiovascular epidemiologist. “I’m very upset that supposedly educated administrators of a school system are trying to balance their budgets on the backs of the children that they’re supposed to educate.

“They are mortgaging the health of our children for a short-term balancing act.”

The issue is bigger than junk food, said Peter J. Vedro, CHIP executive consultant who works in Rockford, and he’s probably right. The bigger issue is an aggressive marketing battle for our children’s souls.

“The junk food ban is emblematic,” Vedro said in an e-mail. “It is about the larger, more subtle issue of reclaiming our right to determine what forces shape not only their bodies, but their minds and spirits as well.

“Over the past decades, we have systematically turned over our schools, classrooms and children to the marketing forces of the current culture, whether that is in news, arts, entertainment or, now, food.”

SOME PEOPLE THINK it’s all right to seek corporate sponsors for school teams, which might mean that the company could prominently display its name or tout its products in that venue. For a fee, of course.

Add this to marketing strategies that tell young people they can’t be “cool” unless they wear certain labels, own certain items or mimic certain celebrities. Look at all the Britney Spears clones in our elementary schools. Shudder.

The message is: Self-worth is determined by what you wear, what you have, whom you emulate and what you eat and drink.

We need to emphasize critical-thinking skills with our children to combat what Diehl calls the “intrusive and subtle marketing” that is vying for their minds and their money.

“It covers our lives and we don’t even know it,” he said.

Contact: jemerson@registerstartower.com; 815-987-1336

Published: January 12, 2004