Blaming fast food ads for fat kids misses new menus catering to kids

From Delaware Online:

There’s a bit of excess fat in a report by researchers that claims banning fast-food advertisement from children’s television programs would reduce childhood obesity.

There’s a bit The study in this month’s Journal of Law and Economics predicts an 18 percent reduction in overweight children and a 14 percent drop in the number of overweight teens if the TV ads were stopped.

Several statistical models were used to connect obesity rates to the amount of time spent watching fast-food ads. “There is not a lot of evidence that overweight kids are more likely to watch TV than other kids,” said Michael Grossman, professor of economics at the City University of New York. “We’re arguing the causality is how many messages are aired – seeing more of these messages is leading people to put on weight.”

But the Council of Better Business Bureaus points out that the estimates are based on older data gathered in the 1990s, before Burger King and McDonald’s and more than a dozen other packaged food companies signed a pledge to advertise only their healthier products to children under age 12.

Pre-adolescents are more likely now to see fast- food advertising for children’s meals that include apple sticks and low-fat milk.

But even if the statistical basis for this report were updated, it’s difficult to extrapolate a direct causal link that excludes the important role of parents and guardians. In most cases, what children see is not what they get unless adults are a party to the transactions.

And grownups, like their children, would still be exposed to visuals for fast-food products on highway signage and shopping areas, even if televised ads were banned.

As such, the onus falls on the adults and guardians – not TV advertisers – to resist appeals for high-fat, high-calorie items by making them an out-of-budget family expense.