Heavy
television viewing has been associated with obesity. Television might lead to obesity
through 3 primary pathways:
1)
Displacing time that would otherwise be spent in physical activity
2)
Promoting eating while viewing, which may foster both lower-quality and
higher-quantity food intake;
3)
Exposing children to food advertising, this adversely affects their diets.
Studies have shown that the third
pathway of food advertising has the most impact on causing children to be
overweight. Randomized experiments with children in preschool and first grade
have shown that children experimentally exposed to a few commercials are more
likely than unexposed children to have positive attitudes toward and to choose
the advertised foods over alternatives. Furthermore, one study found that children
exposed to advertising were also more likely than were participants in a
control group to choose non advertised sugary foods. The effect of the advertising
was thus not limited to the specifically advertised brands but had a more
general adverse influence on their food choices
Marketers
target very young children, and children start watching television at very
young ages. Almost 90% of children begin watching television regularly before
age 2, and the average age of initiation is 9 months. Marketing efforts begin with
children as young as 2 years, in order to build brand awareness and brand
sympathy. The typical first-grade child can already recognize and respond to
more than 200 brands.
Research tells us that food
advertising is highly effective. Food commercials increase children’s preferences
for the advertised products and make kids more likely to ask their parents to
buy the products for them. Marketers know this and spend billions of dollars a
year on advertising campaigns targeted to children. One study found that
children between the ages of eight and twelve years old see, on average, more than
7,600 food commercials every year. Food advertising
wouldn’t be such a problem if most of the products being marketed were nutritious,
but, unfortunately, that’s not the truth. Commercials for candy, snacks and fast
food account for more than half of all food ads targeted to children and
teenagers, and commercials for fruits and vegetables are almost nonexistent.
In 2003, the World Health
Organization classified the marketing of unhealthy foods to children as a
probable cause of childhood obesity. Eating while watching television is
another likely reason why TV viewing can lead to obesity. More than 60% of
children usually eat their meals with the TV on, and children regularly snack
while watching TV. Research also suggests that children eat less healthy foods
in front of the TV. For example, one study found that children eat more salty
snacks and fewer fruits and vegetables when they eat with the TV on. In
addition to affecting the types of foods children eat, television has an impact
on how much food they consume. Kids tend to eat more food while watching TV
than during other activities. Researchers have proposed that watching TV
interferes with our bodies’ signals that we’re full. In other words, children
become so engrossed in what they’re watching that they don’t realize they’ve
had enough to eat.
The use of television during family
dinners has also been examined. Family dinners without television have been
shown to be beneficial to the diets of children and adolescents and have been
associated with the likelihood of consuming five or more servings of fruits and
vegetables daily Increased frequency of consuming family dinners was also
associated with significantly higher intakes of several nutrients, including
fiber, calcium, folate, iron, vitamins B6, B12, C, and E; and lower intake of
saturated and trans fatty acids as a percentage of energy.
In a longitudinal study, family
meals during adolescence predicted higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, many
important nutrients and an overall higher quality diet in young adulthood. Studies have shown that when television is on
during family dinners, the positive nutritional consequences of eating together
are reduced. For example, in a cross-sectional study, they found that in children
of low-income families, servings of fruits and vegetables eaten were inversely
correlated with the number of times per week the television was on during dinner.
Other research confirmed that in parents, when the television was on during
dinner, intake of fat increased, whereas servings of fruits and vegetables
decreased. As parents are the gatekeepers of food provided to children, it
stands to reason that parental eating behavior will impact children. These
studies add further to the idea that diet quality is threatened by
television, specifically when it is viewed during meal times. It's also reported
that children who frequently ate while watching television had a preference for
larger portions of energy dense, nutrient-poor foods.
