ATLANTA, Nov. 20, 2008
Study: Fast Food Ad Ban Could Curb Obesity
Double-Digit Drops In Overweight Kids Would Occur If Commercials Ceased, Research Suggests
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The causes of childhood obesity are complicated, but for years researchers have been pondering the effects of TV advertising. (CBS)
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A ban on such commercials would reduce the number of obese young children by 18 percent, and the number of obese older kids by 14 percent, researchers found.
They also suggested that ending an advertising expense tax deduction for fast-food restaurants could mean a slight reduction in childhood obesity.
Some experts say it's the first national study to show fast-food TV commercials have such a large effect on childhood obesity. A 2006 Institute of Medicine report suggested a link, but concluded proof was lacking.
"Our study provides evidence of that link," said study co-author Michael Grossman, an economics professor at City University of New York, in a prepared statement.
The study has important implications for the effectiveness of regulating TV advertising, said Lisa Powell, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Health Research and Policy. She was not involved in the research but was familiar with it.
The percentage of U.S. children who are overweight or obese rose steadily from the 1980s until recently, when it leveled off. About a third of American kids are overweight or obese, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
The causes of childhood obesity are complicated, but for years researchers have been pondering the effects of TV advertising. Powell, for example, found fast-food commercials account for as much as 23 percent of the food-related ads kids see on TV. Others have estimated children see fast-food commercials tens of thousands of times a year.
The new study is based in part on several years of government survey data from the late 1990s that involved in-person interviews with thousands of U.S. families. The researchers also looked at information about local stations in the 75 largest TV markets, including locally seen fast-food commercials and the size of viewing audiences.
The researchers used a statistical test that presumes TV ads lead to obesity but made calculations to address other influences such as income and the number of nearby fast-food restaurants. They also took steps to account for the possibility that some children may already have been overweight and inactive regardless of their TV-watching habits.
The study is being published this month in the Journal of Law & Economics. The authors, funded by a federal grant, included Grossman and researchers from Lehigh University and Georgia State University.
The authors stopped short of advocating an advertising ban or eliminating the advertising tax deduction.
Grossman said it's possible that some families benefit from advertising by finding out what restaurants are nearby and what they're serving. "A lot of people consume fast food in moderate amounts and it doesn't harm their health," he said, in an interview with the AP.
McDonald's Corp., the giant fast-food chain responsible for the widely seen "I'm Lovin' It" ad campaign, referred questions about the study to the National Council of Chain Restaurants.
A spokeswoman for that organization noted the study was based on surveys done in the late 1990s. Since then, fast-food restaurants have expanded their menus significantly to include more healthy options, she said.
She also argued that parents — not kids — have control over most of a family's food spending.
"Parent make choices for their kids — they make choices on where their children eat, and what their children eat. We all know kids have very strong opinions, but ultimately it's parents that make choices for them," said the spokeswoman, Ellen Davis.
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See all 67 Comments"lady54 at 11:07 PM : Nov 20, 2008 - I was just interested in your source for the $60 billion worth of pot grown in the US per year with over half going to those under 18. I''ve been researching the net for a few hours now and I haven''t had any luck finding anything on those numbers."
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I''ve lived in Mendocino for the last 24 years as a builder. I know every back road and politic that exists around here. The county pot numbers for 2007 came out a couple of months ago. Right here in Mendocino County alone was estimated as harvesting $35 billion worth of pot. Then there''s the emerald triangle, Humboldt, Trinity, Mendocino and now adding Lake and Marin Counties. It was also estimated that well over half of what gets harvested ends up in the hands of kids under the age of 18 years old.
For along time the numbers were underestimated because C.A.M.P. agents would come through and our county and consume their federal budget going after plants and claim that they took out 10% when all along it was less than 1%. This was always a source of entertainment for the local pot growers.
Years ago we had recess, we did not watch much TV. I have TV but don''t watch it much. The ads are loo breaks. I hate ads.
According to AC Nielsen, the average child watches about 28 hours of tv per week while the average youth watches almost 29 hours of tv per week.
The journal The Future of Children finds that the combined media exposure of computers, the Internet, video games, video players, music players, etc. is about 3 1/2 hours per day for 2-7 year olds and jumps to about 8 hours per day for 8-18 year olds. However, this exposure does not lessen the time spent parked in front of the tv.
So to put a total to all of this, the youth of America spends about 84-85 hours a week NOT being active but being mesmerized and numbed by some form of media entertainment.
And it has been my observational experience that they can suck down plenty of soda and snacks while parked in front of the computer and the tv.
No wonder obesity is rampant.
There was a lot of buzz in 2006 about pot being the top US crop but I''ve just checked 50+ references and every one of them points to the same report was published by Jon Gettman. The dollar amount he attributed to US pot production then was $35.8 billion.
Other than all that 2006 buzz I''ve been unable to find mention of an annual dollar amount attributable to pot grown in the US.
Another study by the same John Gettman states that 25.1 million Americans used pot at least once in 2007 but that 87% of those users were adults.
According to the CDC, pot use among 8th graders, 10th graders and seniors began to decline in 2003 and continued to decline through 2006 which was the last year of data in the report I found and the data only covered those age groups. The CDC also reports that
the incidence of obesity continued to rise while pot use decreased.
To be continued...
We are already a nation of prescription drug addicts, and these ads only serve to make the situation worse. They encourage people to self-diagnose, and imagine that they have conditions that don''t exist (hypochondria).
Nine chances out of ten, if you ask your doctor for a drug, he will prescribe it, whether you need it or not. That''s why the drug companies offer incentives to doctors based on how many prescriptions they write.
Leave the fast food ads alone. Put the blame for the fat kids on the parents where it belongs.
Every year illegal pot growers in the US grow and sell over $60 billion dollars worth of pot and over half of it ends up in the hands of kids less than 18 years of age. Marijuana is an extremely powerful appetite enhancer and pot is abundantly available in every high school, junior high school and half the grade schools in this nation.
I''m not saying that every over weight kid is a pot smoker but I can''t help but wonder what percentage of overweight kids are motivated by smoking marijuana? Billions of dollars of marijuana being available in our schools and childhood obesity have equally increased at about the same time.
We know if the economic crisis passes, they''ll be after our guns. Food will be next LOL.
Lmao at you idiots who voted in these Tards!
Posted by dltgold at 06:50 PM : Nov 20, 2008
That would mean the Parents would have to feed their own children, (GASP) And if they turned off the TV and had quality time (playing games, going places, teaching/learning) our kids might be able to compete with the chinese kids ''one on one''....
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maybe you''re fatter because your easy to influence assss watches too much tv
And after "WE" make the poor choices and cry for government help to save us from ourselves, we will snivel about how intrusive the government has gotten in our lives.
Self-control and personal responsibility seems to have disappeared in America, now "it''s everyone else''s fault for my problems, not mine."
Posted by hdinsight at 04:58 PM : Nov 20, 2008
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I''M LOVIN'' IT!!!
(Great essay)
Posted by redbds at 03:41 PM : Nov 20, 2008
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Too many pedophiles inside, too!
These kids are probably the ones that are up on myspace, where they''re also being targeted by pedophiles!
Posted by penniemumm at 04:14 PM : Nov 20, 2008"
You lack the self control to turn off the TV, so you demand that the government control what you watch? For some reason I think you are doomed.
Posted by Kaliwind at 02:26 PM : Nov 20, 2008
Can''t let kids play outside like we did when we were kids. To many pedophiles running around out there. It is not safe like it was when we were kids.
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See all 67 Comments