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In light of last week's news that almost a quarter of Ilinoisians are obese, should a new study that found that 98% of all food advertised to children between the ages of two and 11 was high in sugar, fat or sodium really surprise us? 
Slightly less alarming (but only slightly) was the finding that 89.4% of food-product advertisements viewed by 12-to-17 year olds, were high in fat, sugar, or sodium. The study was conducted by UIC and Bridge the Gap, a research group funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
"We know that foods marketed to kids can be high in sugar," lead researcher Lisa M. Powell told Advertising Age. "The fact that it's essentially all of them was surprising."
To do the study, the three researchers watched nearly 10,000 commercials. (TiVo? Anyone?) They then weighed the nutritional content of the food advertised against television rating to measure "the actual exposure measures of the nutritional content of food advertising seen by children and adolescents." The study is the first to use television ratings to measure exposure. One caveat with the study is that it was conducted in 2003 and 2004, before 11 large corporations like General Mills and Campbell pledged to stop marketing unhealthy foods to children.
Our bet? If you did this study in 2007, you'd find the exact same results.
Image via the Daily Mail.
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Really?? High-sugar foods are marketed to kids?? Say it ain't so. And I thought that the Fruit Loops that Tucan Sam was hawking to me 20 years ago were part of a well-balanced nutritional diet.
As with everything in today's world, parents need to take a little responsibility here. Marketing or not, the foods that kids are eating are bought and paid for by parents. You don't have to say yes every time Jimmy wants a cupcake. Enforce good eating habits at home, and the kids won't be fat.
o.k., lets hear it, the obesity epidemic is just a conspiracy dreamed up by the YMCA industrial complex,The international Model association masterminded by Richard Simmons to make money off of gullible Americans and any one who disagrees is rude