A brand new examine revealed on the European Obesity Congress (ECO) in Malaga, Spain, revealed the shocking influence of junk meals promoting on kids’s dietary habits. Researchers discovered that publicity to promoting meals which can be excessive in saturated fats, sugar and salt (HFSS) causes kids and adolescents to burn considerably extra energy all through the day, no matter the kind of media platform.
The trial, performed by a workforce on the University of Liverpool, concerned 240 kids, ages 7 to fifteen, from colleges in Merseyside within the UK. Participants have been uncovered to HFSS meals advertisements for simply 5 minutes and non-food advertisements in one other session. The examine measured subsequent snack and lunch intakes and revealed that kids burned a mean of 130 energy after seeing junk meals advertisements. This is the equal of two breads.
This examine is especially well timed as many nations throughout Europe and all over the world take into account implementing unhealthy meals promoting restrictions to fight rising weight problems ranges in kids. Previous research linked product-based promoting in audiovisual media to extend quick and subsequent consumption amongst kids, however this examine demonstrated that it has brand-only meals advertisements with branding components like logos with out displaying precise meals.
“Unhealthy meals advertising and marketing results in a sustained enhance in calorie consumption in younger individuals at a degree enough to advertise weight achieve over time,” defined Professor Boyland. “This examine is the primary to display that meals advertisements for manufacturers solely with out at present globally restrictive promoting insurance policies enhance kids’s meals consumption.”
Interestingly, sorts of media, resembling audiovisuals like tv, social media posts, audios like podcasts, or static photographs like billboards, didn’t mitigate the influence on kids’s consumption. Additionally, the outcomes of the advert content material didn’t change. Brand-only promoting was simply as efficient as product-based promoting in rising calorie consumption. The researchers famous that with every enhance in standardized models of physique mass index (BMI) adjusted for age and gender, kids burned an extra 17 kilocalories total.
This article was written with the help of the News Analysis System.