DrinksRelation between soft drinks advertisements and childhood obesity
Advertising is always important when related to influencing consumer preferences. Particularly, when consumers are children, who are more susceptible to appealing advertisements and effective promotion of food products, advertising can have a really direct effect on how children perceive dietary habits, and even worse, on what they consume on a daily basis.
Scientific research confirms that both adults and children, who spend time watching TV exhibit poor dietary habits, decreased physical activity, poor health conditions and obesity. This happens primarily because watching TV is basically a sedentary activity that puts metabolism to sleep thus significantly reducing metabolic rates. However, watching TV is always associated with eating a snack, a pre-packaged meal or a fast food meal and drinking one or two cans of soda; and the consumption of such types of foods increases directly as people get exposed to relevant advertisements.
In this context, there is a direct correlation between soft drinks advertisements and childhood obesity. This is sustained primarily by the fact that the more children watch TV, the more their food choices change, preferring soft drinks over milk. The food industry emphasizes on high-calorie foods and low-nutrient products on its TV advertisements and this is what children see, get influenced by and want to eat or drink. Besides, for children and for many adults, a hamburger and a cola meal from the local fast food sounds tastier than a healthy meal with vegetables and soup.
Children are also stimulated by similar preferences of their peers. If their friends at school drink a soda can every day, then this is a trend that has to be followed. And this stimulus is further increased by TV advertisements. Typical teenagers consume at least two 12oz cans of soft drinks per day, which equals to 350 calories and 20 teaspoons of sugar or 20 percent of the total amount of calories when the recommended amount for children is 10 percent. Considering that children consume sweets and sweetened fruit drinks during the day, the total amount of calories increases to 43 percent (!). So, basically, nearly half of the daily diet of American children is based on added sugars and sweetened snacks, instead of milk and nutrient drinks, which makes nutritional deficiencies a sad reality. And there is absolutely no doubt that advertisements contribute to a great extent to childrenň€™s eating and drinking preferences.
Besides, The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on School Health has suggested that the excessive consumption of soft drinks in schools contributes to childhood obesity. During the 1990s, large beverage companies were running advertisements on Channel One that was playing 24/7 in the school classrooms targeting 8 million children of elementary, middle and high school. Besides, advertisements of large fast food chains (Burger King) were hosted in school hallways leading to huge contracts with Coca Cola and great profitability for all parties involved. Apparently, marketing and advertising impact did their job more than successfully in these cases.
Because of all the above, today childhood obesity is a huge problem in the United States. Statistics report that 20% percent of preschool children are obese because of poor dietary habits and sedentary lifestyle (TV and fast food meal combination), which will result in a 50% of American children to be obese in 2010. Apart from having become a national epidemic, obesity is also the culprit for developing all types of cancers as well as heart diseases, osteoporosis, kidney failure, central nervous system problems, metabolic abnormalities, hypertension, and migraines, among others.
In order to deal with this huge problem and anticipate childhood obesity, large beverage companies have agreed to stop targeting with their TV advertisements at children under age 12. This was a decision that was taken partly under the threat of rulings on soft drinks advertisements and partly out of sensitivity to deal with childhood obesity, both in the U.S. and Europe. Besides, soft drinks sales have been banned from Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Miami schools.
One thing that should be taken into consideration is that children are not able to evaluate advertisements and decide on what is the best food or drink for their health and future life. Parents are responsible for their childrenň€™s choices, and particularly for those choices that are related to health issues and healthy dietary habits. Soft drinks are particularly responsible for many unfavorable health conditions and especially the increased likelihood of obesity. Therefore, parents are the ones to guide their children not to replace milk over soda, thus maintaining the adequate calcium levels in their blood and lower the risk for osteoporosis. In any case, no matter how aggressive or direct the impact of soft drinks advertisements is on children, parents are the ones to pay particular attention on food and drink preferences and increased request for particular foods. This is probably the only way to fight childhood obesity.