Farm Field (photo by diggerdanno, courtesy of morgueFile.com)

Kudos to those who have let their views be known when it comes to the advertising of unhealthy foods on television programs aimed at children. It appears to be having a positive effect.

A new study says there have been “substantial decreases in exposure to ads for the most heavily advertised sugar-sweetened beverages” and exposure to sweets ads fell as well. On the down side, the researchers report that exposure to fast food ads has actually increased.

An article on the study was published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. It was authored by researchers affiliated with the Institute for Health Research and Policy and the Department of Economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Unhealthy Consequences

What comes of selling food loaded with empty calories to children? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16% of children ages 6 to 19 years old are overweight or obese, a number that has tripled to 9 million kids since 1980. Type 2 diabetes is an illness linked to obesity, and was once almost unknown in children. But for those born in the U.S. in 2000, the risk of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives is estimated to be about 30% for boys and 40% for girls.

A Direct & Powerful Link Between Ads & Eating Habits

Experiments conducted by researchers at Yale University found “a direct and powerful link between television food advertising and calories consumed by adults and children.” The research appeared in the July 2009 issue of the journal Health Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.

The lead author of the study, Jennifer Harris, PhD, at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale said, “Food advertising triggers automatic eating, regardless of hunger, and is a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic. Reducing unhealthy food advertising to children is critical.”

The Power of Pester

Corporate Accountability International, a nonprofit watchdog group, has published a research paper on the topic of food advertising aimed at children, “Clowning With Kids’ Health, The Case for Ronald McDonald’s Retirement.”

CAI’s report offers some interesting insights on the practice of advertising to children so they will pester parents to buy products:

Advertisers understand that it takes a lot of fortitude for a parent to continue to say no, when saying yes is the path of least resistance. They also understand that even health-conscious parents are inclined to give-in after a long day at work or after busily shuttling kids from school to soccer practice to piano lessons and beyond. Not only have they classified nagging tactics into seven major categories from pleading nags to pity nags, they’ve even gone so far as to categorize parents according to identified stress factors and conditions (such as income, marital status, and guilt) that make a parent more vulnerable to the nagging of their children.

To view the U. of Illinois study cited above, go to: Trends in Exposure to Television Food Advertisements Among Children and Adolescents in the United States

To view the CAI research cited above, go to: Clowning With Kids’ Health, The Case for Ronald McDonald’s Retirement

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