Have you ever thought about WHY we end up mindlessly eating in front of the TV? Well, I did some research and this is what I found. I took a look at how child obesity is directly linked to the advertisements that they are exposed to. Playgrounds are abandoned in favor of video games and lounging on the couch. Schools have had to cut back on portion sizes to help as much as they can. One market that is definitely not cutting back or helping to cease this dilemma is the advertising industry. Companies are spending more than ever before to try and get every little kid hooked on their product. A big problem is the type of ads the fast food and junk food companies run. They will use “popular” kids that other kids look up to, the latest song, or even give out little prizes to go along with their meals. Nothing will stop them from obtaining their “life-long customer”, not even childhood deaths caused by obesity complications. The real question is, can the fast food industries’ advertisements really be affecting children in such a way as to cause obesity at such a young age? There is only one way to find out.
Many studies have been done to prove that food industry advertisements are negatively affecting children like the study done by The US National Library of Medicine that showed children do in fact eat more when shown the advertisements. This is an extremely important concern to pay attention to for the future. Our society cannot keep eating the way it is and still maintain a healthy life on earth. Even the children that survive could have eating problems, which will then be passed onto their children and so on and so forth. What could happen next could potentially be a scary chain of events that might lead to only fast food restaurants and completely unrestricted advertising for those chains. By learning more about this, I know that we have to act upon this now and not in the future when it becomes too big of a problem to handle.
I looked into a study that was performed by The U.S. National Library of Medicine, and although I had a little difficulty understanding it, I believe it was the most thorough with its study on children and adult eating habits while watching advertisement. It followed all of the scientific methods by asking whether children and adults are affected by fast food advertisements and then hypothesizing that the results would be yes, they would. They then collected data from participants of children and adults by analyzing their eating habits before and after watching food advertisements. After interpreting these results they found both groups, children and adults, do eat more when exposed to advertising. They believe that it in fact is the advertising that is making the participants eat more.
I found another article on TIME by Alice Park, where she really broke down some of studies and made it easier to understand for the everyday reader. I also found another article from a periodical called Reason, which is a magazine of free mind and free markets. This article took a different spin and said it was not just the advertising of bad food, but the watching of TV in itself that was causing obesity. The writer, Jacob Sullum, argues that since watching TV is a sedentary activity, it will make you gain weight and the advertising of fast food is just an added way to get fat.
As for my final thoughts, I really do think fast food companies play a big part in this crisis of childhood obesity. I do not think there is any way to stop them though unless there is a boycott, which would never happen. To help the kids be aware of manipulative advertising, I think it should be brought up in elementary schools to children and their parents. These articles show that consumers have taken notice of what the food industry is doing with their advertising, so now it is up to us to try and fight it. Hopefully one day childhood obesity will be a thing of the past and not a part of our future.