Current Events II.


                Junk food commercials make children overeat

Children and media exposure are a usual topic nowadays, because there is not toy industry in the centre of concern as much as fast food industry. Fast food industries obviously try to make their advertisements to attract most audience, but there is a small thought to focus mainly on children. That is the reason why all these restaurants have some children menu and childish advertising. Nice example is McDonalds and it's happy meal commercials. Every time there's a new animated movie, they immediately launch these characters as a free toy with the menu.  

In May 24th of this year, researchers from the University of Wollongong made a study, which was later published in Journal Appetite. They measured the consumption of food among children aged 7 to 12 after seeing food advertisements on television and internet. This process took 6 days, when children were monitored how they react on food and non-food advertising. What is more, researchers also looked at the aspect how were these children eating snacks or dinner, especially if the amount or quality of food was different. The aim of a study was to look at the impact of unhealthy food advertising on children's lifestyle. The study found, that after seeing these advertisements, 97% of the children ate and drank more after seeing these advertisements. (Wollongong, 2018)The University of Wollongong did this research after seeing a case of Bob Garman. Bob was a small, 8 year old boy doing gymnastics. Since he was 6 years old, he did not eat anything. His body was literally starving. Every time after he saw advertisement on TV, he wanted that food or drink. After 5 years of visiting fast food industries and chocolate factory, Bob became fat and could not do gymnastics anymore. If we not look at the fact that most of the time he was tired and nervous, he has also serious health problems, e.g. slower metabolism, changes in levels of blood sugar, asthma, etc. He personally agreed: "Junk food made me overeat, but media exposure gave me the first impulse." (Peters, 2018)







References: 1) Essential Kids. Junk food commercials [online]. New York: FairFax Media, 2016 [cit. 2018-12-06]. Retrieved from: http://www.essentialkids.com.au/food/nutrition/proof-that-junk-food-advertising-makes-children-overeat-20180522-h10e8b       
2) If junk food commercials were real. In: YouTube [online]. USA: FairFax Media, 2017 [cit. 2018-12-06]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8lgZxYxpC8

Komentáře

  1. its not only children affected by this but also adults

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    1. I completely agree with you, but as my blog is focusing on children I wanted to put them the most attention. On the other hand, generally speaking, we can say that every generation is affected by commercials.

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  2. Hi, I think that this issue is gigantic, and we ,I mean us like adults shoud think what we are showing to young kids and try to make the change .

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