Fast Food Advertising And Childhood Obesity

Many health professionals believe that fast food restaurants are a major factor in increasing childhood obesity in America. Their belief is that advertisements produced by fast food restaurants are targeting children as their audience. Health professionals believe that children of a young age are very easily persuaded by fast food advertisements, which creates more demand for their product resulting in an increased rate of childhood obesity. The American Psychological Association (APA) state on their website that, "Research has found strong associations between increases in advertising for non-nutritious foods and rates of childhood obesity" (The Impact of Food Advertising…). This research is what has sparked this belief of fast food restaurant's

In a research study that was performed by Shin-Yi Chou, Inas Rasha, and Michael Grossman, they analyzed the relationship between the exposure to fast-food advertising and childhood obesity and found that there was, "a strong positive effect of exposure to fast-food restaurants advertising on the probability the children and adolescents are overweight" (616). This meant that the more fast-food advertising a child viewed, the greater the probability of the child or adolescent becoming overweight. The APA supports this on their website through their statement that, "Product preference has been shown to occur with as little as a single commercial exposure and to strengthen with repeated exposures. Product preferences affect children's product purchase requests and these requests influence parents' purchasing decisions." A parent's purchasing decision often takes into account the desires of their child, and it has been noted that with increased frequency of views of fast-food advertisements the product preference for their products increase as well. Health professionals believe that this is a major factor in the increasing rate of childhood obesity in

Oliver states that it is this change in a child's diet that should be held accountable for the increase in childhood obesity over the last thirty years, not the value meal at McDonalds. In a recent research study that was performed by Jennifer Poti, Kiyah Duffey, and Barry Popkin, they found that, "a Western dietary pattern outside the fast food restaurant, although mostly obtained from grocery stores, was associated with overweight/obesity, whereas fast food was not" (8). According to The Free Dictionary, a western diet is defined as a diet high in saturated fats, red meats, ‘empty’ carbohydrates—junk food—and low in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, seafood, poultry. Their research supported the belief that it was not the consumption of fast food that was resulting in overweight/obesity, but the eating habits surrounding their consumption of fast food that most likely results in it. Poti, Duffey, and Popkins also noted in their study that " supermarkets, which provide fresh produce but also SSBs and chips, can contribute to both healthy and less healthy purchasing patterns; for example, foods consumed by US children from retail stores were found similar to fast food in total solid fat and added sugar content" (8). While it can be said that fast food is a factor in today's high obesity rates, there