Of course, we already knew this, but a new study finds that young kids — who are barraged by TV commercials nudging them to eat unhealthy, sugar-, fat-, and salt-filled processed foods — are receiving misleading nutritional messages.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — who studied 134 children in the first through third grades — found that the kids were confused as to which foods would help them grow up to become “strong and healthy.”
In particular, the children were perplexed when it came to foods labeled “fat-free” or “diet.”
In fact, TV advertising intentionally blurs the line between diet and nutritional. It “frames” diet foods by “equating weight-loss benefits with nutritional benefits,” said Kristen Harrison, a University of Illinois speech communications professor, who headed up the research team.
One TV ad for chocolate syrup, for instance, runs the tagline, “as always, fat free.” (Oh goodness, do kids think that this means it’s nutritious?)
The study also discovered that the more TV the children watched, the less they were able “to provide sound nutritional reasons for their food choices.
“Given the plentitude of advertisements on television touting the health benefits of even the most nutritionally bankrupt of foods, child viewers are likely to become confused about which foods are in fact healthy,” said Harrison, whose findings appear in the journal Health Communication.
It’s up to us to do whatever we can to un-confuse these deceived children and teach them about virtues of vegetables, fruits, and other healthy foods. One option is to get involved with the organization Commercial Alert, which is dedicated to stopping the marketing of junk food to America’s children.