Other than fiber, cereal is useless. Oatmeal is the way to go and many of them can be quite good. I'm all for sweet tasting foods, but why do they have to be filled with garbage? Can they make a Twinkie or an Oreo without using trash additives? The result wouldn't be a cardboard taste, on the contrary. It would likely be more perishable, taste fresher and be much healthier. Anyone who has ever experienced fresh baked bread or homemade cookies can attest to the better taste.
You can make it... it costs like 8 bucks at one of those annoying high class bakeries with fake cutesy names... but it can be done.
I agree we need to get rid of corn syrup, and I'm seeing less and less of it in cereals (at least General Mills) and even in drinks like Capri Sun and Newman's Own Lemonades (they had to tinker with the formula like crazy, and it tasted incredibly sour for a while, but they got it right).
But here's the thing... junk food is widely known as junk food for a reason. once they change the term to "mother's milk" then there is a true complaint. I deeply believe a lot of people know what they should eat, they just don't care and don't want to. Banning the heck out of everything and treating them like smokers is NOT going to solve anything, and just make them angry and frustrated.
But the number one thing that everyone forgets is that kids LIKE sugar. Only way to raise a kid without the stuff is to feed them nothing but organic crap that only a small percentage of families can actually afford. And you have to do this continuously since birth. Kids will only eat oatmeal if it has something floating in it. Parents have to force kids to eat healthy, and I just don't see that anymore. I see parents too lazy to say no, and parents that desperately want their kids to be their best friends. And we all know what happens when a boy's best friend is his mother (wocka wocka).
I agree something needs to be done, but everyone's large on complaints and bannings, and short on long term, more deeply effective solutions. Like, I dunno... maybe raising the working class's pay so they don't have to gorge themselves on cheap chemicals? Let's not forget while a lot of people do eat whatever they aren't supposed to because it feels good, this sort of thing preys on the ultra-poor. You all see super sized fries... I see a nation that has to stuff themselves with 1 dollar Banquet frozen dinners and Hamburger helper to survive.