Mommy, Shrek wants me to exercise!

So, instead of doing my homework this evening, I've been spending some quality time doing the usual net-surfing, which led me to this article on MSNBC. For those of you too lazy to click the link (I see you there), it's talking about this advocacy group that opposes the use of characters from the Shrek movies in PSA announcements like this one that try to combat childhood obesity. The main gist of their argument is that the Shrek characters are also used to promote junk like Pop-Tarts, Sierra Mist, and McDonald's Happy Meals, so how can they possibly be believable spokesmen (or spokescreatures, I suppose) for an active, healthy lifestyle?

On the one hand, I can kind of see their point. It does strike me as a little hypocritical when I see Shrek and Donkey grinning at me from the huge display of Kellogg's Shrek Cereal (with marshmallows!) at the local supermarket, and then go home to see them on TV telling me to go out and play "an hour a day." How can McDonald's' latest merchandise monkey possibly be an effective deterrent to obesity among our nation's youth?

However, I see that. Somehow, I don't think a child would. Kids don't care about what's healthy; they care about what's new and cool and fun. Using characters they see as possessing these qualities in effective advertisements creates the idea on some level that the thing being advertised also possesses them. What that thing happens to be is fairly irrelevant. Young kids for the most part do not have the preconceived notion that McDonald's food is bad for you; they see it as they have experienced it, and as it is portrayed on TV: a yummy treat with a fun toy! Hooray! Therefore, they notice nothing hypocritical about a character scarfing down a Happy Meal one minute, then talking about how fun it is to be active and play outside the next.

(And honestly, if I may go off on a slight tangent for a moment here, is it really all that hypocritical? I mean sure, junk food is bad for you, but is there some law saying that people who eat junk food aren't allowed to exercise, or that they are guaranteed to be obese? I know lots of skinny people, and people who are fairly conscious of their diets, who indulge in the occasional Pop-Tart or bowl of Cheezits—isn't the rule supposed to be "everything in moderation"?)

Children also generally don't yet have the idea that exercise is a horrible task to be avoided—why, playing outside is fun! However, if Shrek is promoting junk food while weird, 70s-style cartoon kids are promoting an "active lifestyle" (or worse, those awful kids who fail miserably in trying to "act cool"), then the child starts to think that junk food is really the fun stuff, while exercise must be something adults want you to do "for your own good," and should therefore be avoided.

I agree with the advocacy people that advertising aimed at children is unfair and often despicable in its tactics, but they're going at this issue bass-ackwards. The deals between the Shrek people and the junk food people are already in place; they're not going anywhere soon. To say that the Ad Council can't use the characters in their PSAs would be to give the junk food even more of an advantage. Shrek is exactly what the PSAs need; instead of protesting them, the advocacy groups should be protesting his appearance in the junk food ads. Or, better yet, focus on limiting the advertisement of unhealthy products aimed at children in general. That would be something to accomplish.