Media seems to have a lot of influence on the young impressionable minds of children. Apparently, TV ads may affect the health of children in several ways. Study authors from the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute for Health Research and Policy wants to determine whether or not TV food advertising upsets children’s diet, physical activity and weight.
This four-year project is said to be quite inimitable as it could segregate the outcome of food advertising from the quantity of time that children view TV. Apparently, watching television may also add to obesity since children are inactive and prone to snack while they watch TV.
Lisa Powell, research professor of economics at UIC and lead scientist on the study, commented, “A number of studies have shown that increased TV watching is associated with higher weight outcomes among kids, but they haven’t been able to determine whether or not this is directly due to the type of ads children see.”
The study may offer significant details for policymakers and public health activists about the possible value of controlling television food advertising to children and using TV media campaigns as a means to enhance these health results.
Preceding study performed by Powell and her colleagues exhibited that approximately 98 percent of food-product ads watched by children ages 2 to 11, and 89 percent of those seen by adolescents ages 12 to 17, were for foods high in fat, sugar or sodium. The present study is claimed to be the first to merge food, beverage and restaurant ad ratings and nutritional data with individual data on obesity to examine the association between product exposure, nutritional content of ad exposure, and food consumption, diet quality and obesity.
Moreover, the study may investigate the association between contact to health promotion ads, those that persuade consuming fruits and vegetables or receiving standard physical activity and individual behaviors connected to diet, activity and weight results.
By gauging the kinds of ads that children of diverse ages and races are uncovered to, the experts anticipate in verifying if advertising practices and television viewing patterns may add to differences in diet and obesity among white and black children.
This work appears to leverage on preceding studies Powell and her colleagues have performed, investigating the consequences of environmental aspects on children’s obesity. Powell anticipates that this study could play a critical function in finding out whether or not powerful regulation should be made for food advertising on children’s programming.