Yep, lots of people want to blame the fat-kid problem on junk food ads on TV, and the jury's still out on that one. But meanwhile, eleven of the U.S.'s biggest kid's food advertisers have agreed to new standards of the products they advertise.

Sounds good in theory, doesn't it? 

But the reality is a bit, well, watered down.  For instance, Campbell's will advertise its low-sodium soup as opposed to regular old chicken-noodle. Trix won't advertise until it changes its formula (WHAT?? Mess with Trix?!! Sacrilege!). And McDonald's will still advertise, of course. Only it will be for kid's meals limited to 600 calories or fewer. So kids can still see junk food, only, what, in smaller portions? Reduced-fat? Couldn't we just have ads that didn't actually feature any junk food? Or is that too much to ask?

Yeah. I know the answer to that one. But consider this: will the new initiative cause more marketers to actually change their products or will they simply spend less on kid's advertising and spend their dollars elsewhere? A Nickelodeon spokesman predicted their financial impact from loss of advertising revenue based on the new standards would be “a non-issue” because most products advertised already fit the criteria have plans for reformulation.

So like I said, the changes won't amount to much in practice. Oh well.