Advertising could favor childhood obesity

Overweight children: discovering one of its possible causes.

Health policies are focusing more and more on prevention so that they do not have to be cured later. This explains, for example, the awareness campaigns against Smoking and in favor of responsible driving. However, it is also logical to think that, just as propaganda can be used to change habits for the better, the opposite can also be true.

Obese children: what role does advertising play?

Just as many cultural products such as video games and music are frequently video games or music are often accused (unfoundedly) of inducing undesirable behaviors, the idea that advertising can lead to unwanted behaviors is often misconceived.The idea that advertising affects us in ways that go beyond our purchasing preferences does not seem far-fetched. Could it be that advertising spots modify our way of being and do so for the worse?

A recent study indicates that this may be happening with the influence of unhealthy industrial food advertisements on young children.

What does the research consist of?

The research from which this conclusion was drawn is a meta-study conducted by analyzing data from 18 published studies. The team behind the study wanted to obtain a global vision of the results reached by other scientists in order to find out whether unhealthy food advertisements modify the consumption habits of children and adults and thus provide a basis for implementing certain regulations on advertising in the event of an undesired influence.

Thus, all of the experimental design studies that were selected for meta-analysis were concerned with the relationship between exposure to industrial food advertisements and food consumption. Thus, samples of children and adults exposed to industrial food advertisements and food consumption were used, samples of children and adults exposed to industrial food advertising were used.In addition, data were collected on the amount of food they ate, and these data were compared with those of individuals who were not exposed to such advertising.

The results of the study

The data obtained show that this type of advertising does have a significant, albeit small or moderate, effectThe data obtained show that this type of advertising does have a significant, albeit small or moderate, effect on the amount of food children eat, while the same does not seem to be true for the adult population.

This reinforces the idea that timely exposure to food advertising induces children to eat more food, which may have social and political implications.

Do these conclusions make sense?

In fact, yes. Younger people are especially prone to be influenced by all kinds of stimuli, and this is well reflected in the way they imitate and adopt habits they see in other people or in fashionable trends.and this is well reflected in the way they imitate and adopt habits they see in other people or in fashion trends. Moreover, even if the ads are designed to get people to buy a particular product, this does not mean that they cannot have a much broader spectrum of possible effects than simply the continued purchase of a single brand, so that children try to satisfy the needs emphasized in the ads through all sorts of behaviors related to (but not the same as) those seen in the advertising.

The effects of this do not have an impact on the sales volume of the companies concerned, but they do have an impact on the lives of young people and on public health systems. Regulating more by placing greater control on what is shown in this type of advertisements can be complicated, but in light of this data it is a path that could be worth taking, considering the omnipresence of advertising not only on television but also on the Internet, a space in which the youngest people are in their element.