The study, conducted by National Bureau of Economic Research with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the Journal of Law & Economics, is the largest of its kind to clearly show a link between childhood obesity and fast food advertising on American television.
Economist Shin-Yi Chou of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said, "We have known for some time that childhood obesity has gripped our culture, but little empirical research has been done that identifies television advertising as a possible cause."
The researchers looked at the data of television viewing habits of nearly 13,000 kids from two national surveys, the Child-Young Adult National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in 1979 and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in 1997.
The authors of the paper - economists Shin-Yi Chou of Lehigh University, Inas Rashad of Georgia State University, and Michael Grossman of City University of New York Graduate Center - measured the number of hours of fast food television advertising messages watched by kids on a weekly basis.
The authors wrote in the Journal of Law and Economics, "The advertising measure used is the number of hours of spot television fast-food restaurant advertising messages seen per week.”
The findings showed that the ban on the fast food advertising would lower the number of overweight kids in between the ages of 3 to 11 years by 18 percent and would also cut down the number of overweight teenagers in between the ages of 12 to 18 years by 14 percent.
The new strategy will no doubt help in lowering the childhood obesity but the authors of the paper also question if banning advertisement is a practical thing since it would involve a high degree of government involvement.
The only countries which have banned commercial sponsorship of children's programs are Sweden, Norway and Finland. The UK government has banned advertising for foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar screening during children’s favorite television programs.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM), one of the United States National Academies, came out with a report in 2006, which showed that there is compelling evidence linking food advertising on television to the upswing in child obesity.
Obesity means having too much body fat and overweight means weighing too much. Both obesity and being overweight means that an individual’s weight is greater than what is considered healthy for his/her height.
Globally, 22 million kids under age of 5 are estimated to be overweight and more than 9 million children in the United States are overweight or obese. 1 out of 3 American kids are now being considered as overweight or obese. Apart from United States, obesity is causing concern in the United Kingdom and Australia as well.
Eating unhealthy junk food and sedentary lifestyle are the main reason behind childhood obesity as many children are spending more time in front of a video-game console, TV or computer and less time exercising. 25 percent of American kids below 10 years of age have high cholesterol, high blood pressure or some other contributor to heart disease.
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