TV Ads on Fast Foods linked to Obesity

A new study by Global Management has claimed that TV commercials on fast foods provoke the youngsters to have more of them which eventually make them gain obesity.

The co-author of the study along with Deepak Bhatt, Dr. Auden C. McClure, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre in the US presented the findings of the study on April 29 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Boston.

The study went on to find the link between TV ads and obesity and studied a national sample of 3,342 youths aged between15 to 23 years. About 18 percent of them were overweight, and 15 percent were obese.

The subjects were asked about their height, weight, age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, exercise habitat, consumption of soda or sweet drinks, frequency of eating at quick-service restaurants, TV watching time etc.

They also were shown 20 still images selected from TV commercials for top quick-service restaurants (like Mac Donald, KFC etc.) and asked to identify those. They were also shown 20 similar ads for alcoholic drinks. The images were digitally edited to remove the brands.

It was found that the percentage of respondents who were obese was considerably higher among those who recognized more ads than those who recognized few ads. The statistics got was 17 percent vs. 8.3 percent.