A recent study presented at this year’s European Obesity Conference (ECO) in Málaga, Spain, reveals that children’s exposure to fast food advertising leads to a considerable increase in calorie intake among children and adolescents, regardless of the media format used for the ads.
The research aimed to evaluate how food advertisements impact children’s eating habits and whether the nature of the ad or its medium played a role. The study involved 240 children aged 7-15 from a school in Merseyside County, England. Participants viewed five minutes of advertisements for unhealthy foods followed by non-food ads across various media formats, including audiovisual (like TV), visual (social media), auditory (podcasts), and print (billboards).
Results indicated that just five minutes of exposure to ads for foods high in saturated fats, sugars, and/or salt led to an average increase of 130 calories consumed daily—roughly equivalent to two slices of bread. Specifically, children’s snack intake increased by 58.4 calories, while lunch consumption rose by 72.5 calories, totaling 130.9 extra calories when combining both snacks and lunch compared to after viewing non-food ads.
Notably, the type of advertisement content did not lessen this effect, with branded ads being equally effective as product ads in boosting food intake. Moreover, neither the advertisement medium nor the socioeconomic status of the families influenced the calorie consumption.
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