> What is your concern ...?

Free time to waste and a reaction to what I perceived as a weird moralizing tangent to a throwaway line only aimed at building social proof of importance for the article's main content about correcting the details of a rags-to-riches tale. (You're probably right it should just be written off as a submarine, though I'm happy for the correction since even the corrected tale provides an example in favor of one of Deming's principles, and it's better for examples to be as factual as possible.) I also was curious that if I mentioned that the marketing to kids angle isn't there and that people are already well aware of what junk food is, would you still be so disturbed?

And I do think you're erroneous in jumping from something being popular with kids to something being marketed to (or even "aimed straight at") kids, though in the process of typing up an even longer comment I realized this isn't entirely fair because one generally expects companies to market to their big consumers. Are kids big consumers? Probably or else the snack wouldn't be popular enough to cause a ruckus, but after a minute's search I didn't find any demographic data addressing more than just adults so beyond the company statement I'm only left with intuition. (FWIW after looking at demographic data I saw a surprising blurb that "America’s Favorite Snack for the Third Year in a Row Is Flamin’ Hot Cheetos". My intuition suggests this is best explained by being most popular with adults, for themselves, rather than kids or teens.) But maybe you'll find a commercial or something to show me that I'm wrong and it definitely is aimed at them, particularly any time recently.

> Why does it make it any better if it's not marketed to kids under 12?

I'm not sure you're even asking this seriously. For an imperfect analogy I would suggest without getting into much reasoning that it's better that society restricts cigarette companies from marketing to kids but lets them continue marketing to adults. If we got into it I think the general principle I'd be going for first would revolve around improved cognition as you age into adulthood, but I don't think it's much better or worse whether this particular junk snack isn't marketed to kids, in part from my own biases that include a fondness for 90s commercials and cartoons.

> Is it more healthy to eat shit when you're over 12?

Generally yes, though the correlation depends on the specific type of shit and often more on weight more so than age... Still, as you age beyond childhood, you tend to get heavier, and your body can tolerate more abuse from lots of kinds of things.

> Am I really causing such irreparable damage by pointing out that it's shit and people shouldn't eat it?

I don't think you're causing damage, I just think it was a weird comment with misplaced moralizing about the kids, and your followup makes me all the more curious whether it's ultimately just a complaint against junk food existing in general. Or is there something about this particular food that you think is egregiously unhealthy? So it's clear, I didn't like this particular flavor when I tried it perhaps 12 years ago, though I do enjoy regular cheetos from time to time (especially when I worked in an office and they were free); I would never mistake them for healthy food, but 1) I think they taste good and 2) I don't think they're particularly unhealthy.