Obese Kids Love Junk Food Advertisements
Friday, November 30, 2012 - 09:40
in Mathematics & Economics
Can advertising make kids fat? Childhood obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years and food marketing has been implicated as one factor contributing to this trend. A week after the Hostess company, makers of Twinkies, went bankrupt, a member of Congress tried to raise unemployment even more and kill the entire industry by proposing elimination of marketing as a legitimate expense. Every year, companies spend more than $10 billion in the US marketing their food and beverages to children and 98% of the food products advertised to children on television are high in fat, sugar, or sodium. In a new study, researchers used neuroimaging to look at the effects of food logos on obese and healthy weight children. read more