V-Day campaign in Congo

I've known about Eve Ensler and her creation, The Vagina Monolgoues, for years since I saw the play in Baltimore. But I wasn't aware of the depth of her work overseas until I read about it in the Asheville Citizen-Times today (of all places to find interesting international news!). Here's the link to the V-Day site: http://www.vday.org/contents/drcongo. I could try and summarize it, but her words are more powerful than mine. This made the pit of my stomach hurt more than anything I've come across in a long, long time. It's worth reading.

Brand sandwich

Our blog covers all things related to motherhood and families, which includes the politics of food. The results of a recent study revealed that children prefer food if it's in a McDonald's wrapper, even if it's carrots. Here's a summary of the findings:

"By the early age of 3 to 5 years, low-income preschool children preferred the tastes of foods and drinks if they thought they were from McDonald’s, demonstrating that brand identity can influence young children's taste perceptions. This was true even for carrots, a food that was not marketed by or available from McDonald’s. These taste preferences emerged despite the fact that 3 of the foods were from McDonald's and only the branding was changed, indicating that the effects were not due to familiarity with the taste or smell of McDonald's food. Even the children with the lowest frequency of eating food from McDonald's had average positive total preference scores, indicating they preferred more of the branded foods ."

You can read the full report from the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/161/8/792?tr=y&auid=2909446.

The sad thing is that I'm not even surprised. Over three years of coordinating a childhood obesity prevention program showed me how far and deep the work needs to go to completely change the youth food culture of this country.

What do you think?

On Message

As a public relations professional, I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about messages. Key messages, staying on message, getting our message out there. This morning in a meeting, a colleague brought up an example of how Hillary Clinton is a pro at staying on message.

During the debate monday night, John Edwards critized Hillary Clinton for appearing on the cover of Fortune magazine. (The headline was: Business Loves Hillary!). Edwards said we'd never see him on the cover of Fortune stating "I am the candidate that big corporate America is betting on.") Edwards turned to Clinton for a response. What was Hillary's reply?

That's she's here to unite the party. As my colleague observed, Hillary came off looking like the peacemaker. Edwards attacked and Clinton didn't bite. She stayed on message. And came out looking the best.

For more commentary, also check out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/07/edwards-slams-hillary-for_n_59571.html.