TV Causes Overeating???

I mean really. This is an actual study. How long have people studied this? Way to long in my opinion. Advertising reps get paid 6 figure incomes to know when and how to show these ads to a target audience. Think about Saturday morning cartoons. All the ads are for things kids want. Kool-Aid, Go-gurt, ect. Kids are typically a captive audience. While adults take these opppurtunitues to grab a snack, children will sit glued to the television. The kids see these ads and urge their parents to go out and buy what they saw. Now fast food ads are shown after the news during your evening programs. When dinner is wearing off, and a snack sounds good. Here is the full article. What do you think about all this?

WEDNESDAY, July 1 (HealthDay News) -- Watching food ads on TV leads to a boost in snacking among children and adults, increasing the risk of weight gain, U.S. researchers say.

Yale University researchers conducted a series of experiments to test the effects of food commercials on television. One test found that children aged 7 to 11 who watched a half-hour cartoon that included food commercials ate 45% more snack food while watching the show than children who watched the same cartoon with non-food commercials.

That increased amount of snacking would lead to a weight gain of nearly 10 pounds a year, unless it was countered by decreased intake of other foods or increased physical activity, the researchers said.

In another experiment, adults who saw TV ads for unhealthy foods ate much more than those who saw ads that featured messages about good nutrition or healthy food.

"This research shows a direct and powerful link between television food advertising and calories consumed by adults and children," lead author Jennifer Harris, director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, said in a news release from the university.

"Food advertising triggers automatic eating, regardless of hunger, and is a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic. Reducing unhealthy food advertising to children is critical," she said.

The study appears in the July issue of the journal Health Psychology.

-- Robert Preidt

SOURCE: Yale University, news release, July 1, 2009