A research team that included Michigan State University staff reports that:
The more a child is familiar with logos and other images from fast-food restaurants, sodas and not-so-healthy snack food brands, the more likely the child is to be overweight or obese.
And, unfortunately, studies have shown that people who are overweight at a young age, tend to stay that way.
The children ages 3 to 5 were tested by being given pictures of unhealthy food-related logos. They then were given pictures of food items, packaging and cartoon characters and asked to match the items with their corresponding brand logos.
Doing the study twice, the research team found that among one group exercise tended to offset the negative effects of too much familiarity with unhealthy food. However, that finding could not be duplicated in the second group.
"The inconsistency across studies tells us that physical activity should not be seen as a cure-all in fixing childhood obesity," McAlister said. "Of course we want kids to be active, but the results from these studies suggest that physical activity is not the only answer. The consistent relationship between brand knowledge and BMI suggests that limiting advertising exposure might be a step in the right direction too."
Because kids get most of their food messages from television, the question is what causes more harm the sedentary lifestyle brought on by too much time in front of the TV or the unhealthy food messages kids are bombarded with?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Monday June 30 2014, @05:06PM
google Alex Riley on the BBC and his testing "super brands". Bascially, we are all the product of our environment, and the presence of corporate logos is fire-hosed onto our consciousness. Perhaps, as a society, we need to deprecate the idea of advertising entirely, and move to a subscriber model.
If I want something, I can go and buy it....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @05:38PM
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @05:14PM
This is not news. Please remove this.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 30 2014, @05:37PM
The weirdest part of the story so far is this is a very recent journalist translation of a specific Elsevier journal article, supposedly, but I search elsevier for both of the supposed co author names and neither exists, nor is anything like the article mentioned on the elsevier front page of the journal. Maybe someone in journalist land got trolled by a believable sounding story?
(Score: 3, Informative) by randmcnatt on Monday June 30 2014, @07:12PM
You can buy a copy for just 35.95 USD.
The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 30 2014, @08:25PM
Thats funny that the primary source doesn't acknowledge its existence, probably because its "in press/proof", but the resellers are already reselling.
Like being able to buy a beta version of windows 9 "debian edition" (LOL as if that would happen) from Dell but MS claims it doesn't exist.
(Score: 2) by Theophrastus on Monday June 30 2014, @05:39PM
similar to your sentiment, i'd say this study just supports the view that: advertising works ...as advertised.
there are lots of dubious products for sale, (perhaps a majority of them), and if they're advertised, (and most of them are), then the advertising will have a net negative social effect.
is this "news"? probably it is to some more optimistic and/or less aware folks (like overstressed parents).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @06:06PM
> similar to your sentiment, i'd say this study just supports the view that: advertising works ...as advertised.
Which ought to be news to the tons of randian uber-men who tend to congregate on sites like this. The type who are so utterly confident that they are immune to advertising and that only the weak-minded can be influenced. Weak-minded 3-year olds, of course.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Monday June 30 2014, @06:27PM
Those 3-year olds just haven't been subject to enough advertisement so they can learn how to "interpret the message". If they're not exposed to enough advertisement in an early age, they'll grow up to be gullible adults.
At least that's the justification the advertisement industry uses whenever anyone talks about illegalising advertisements for kids. Something that IMHO is long overdue.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday June 30 2014, @05:50PM
yeah but it gets a rise out of people like me and so we vent on the internet to make things better.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by McGruber on Monday June 30 2014, @05:51PM
I found it informative, but then I'm the parent of a 21-month old child who already recognizes the yellow Cheerios box as being where Cheerios comes from.
The study will cause lead to repercussions for a lot of things, including http://www.boxtops4education.com/ [boxtops4education.com].
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Monday June 30 2014, @06:57PM
Agreed that it struck a chord with me because we have recently noticed that our 5 year old will recite adverts nearly word for word. If I spill something, in comes the kid "You need Bounty. It's the quicker-picker-upper". He recently told us we need to eat "X" (think it was Activia) because it will make you feel better.
Mom and I found it funny, but he was dead serious. He believes what he is told because he is trained to do that at his age, and we reinforce that generally we want him to "do as told". I suspect that in 10 years when the teenage years are in full swing, this attitude of believing anything he is told will be gone. At least I hope so.
So young kids believe what they hear... and we pretty much let advertisers lie. It's obvious when a 5 year-old repeats a commercial that both of these are true. Fetch me a child of 5!
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 30 2014, @07:32PM
Simple fix, tell him to trust no one.
That is what the X files taught me when I was a kid.
(Score: 2) by rancid on Monday June 30 2014, @10:56PM
I'm hooked on Morleys.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @06:04PM
Agreed remove this.
When you use(eat) something everyday or nearly everyday you will be familiar with it. Knowing that a golden M is for McDonalds does not make you fat. Eating too much McDonalds makes you fat. And if you eat too much McDonalds you will know about the McDonalds brand.
It's like the "I know blank like the back of my hand." BECAUSE YOU SEE THE BACK OF YOUR HAND CONSTANTLY.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @07:31PM
Yeah but are people who know the back of their hand fatter too? That's the point of all this my dear.
(Score: 1) by IndigoFreak on Tuesday July 01 2014, @12:10AM
Are they eating their hands?
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday June 30 2014, @05:55PM
And smart kids are more likely to recognize branding of Scholastic, Wiley, O'Reily and Harper-Collins.
Fit kids will more reliably recognize Nike and Under Armor.
Yawn
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @06:27PM
the motto should really be "EAT! EAT EAT!"
this is a most honest way of supporting the economy; that is people that actually
DO something ... like farmers!
I don't think buying any more stocks and options and futures and whatnot is really helping a
economy is any meaningful real way.
also what seems to be a "taboo" in "healthy eating" circles is that fact that eating
even slightly "non-fresh" food is actually bad for you and fixing this would lead to more
"wasted" food.. don't get me started on all the "wasted" food in the forest like mushroom
and berries that go to "waste" because nobody is eating them ...
So out with the old and in with the new!!!
(Score: 1) by soylentsandor on Monday June 30 2014, @07:11PM
Considering that producing a single calorie of food requires 7 to 10 calories of input (pdf) [nyu.edu], likely largely from fossil fuels, I can understand the concern with wasting food.
Contrast this with your berries and mushrooms growing naturally in the woods. They don't need any fertilizer or pesticides nor are they harvested, transported, packaged or refrigerated, saving all of the energy input.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:46AM
> Contrast this with your berries and mushrooms growing naturally in the woods. They don't need any fertilizer or pesticides nor are they harvested, transported, packaged or refrigerated, saving all of the energy input.
On top of that, they do get eaten anyway - they will be devoured by animals, birds, bugs and bacteria, all of whom have a contribution to make to the ecosystem that supports us all. The nutrients of the "wasted" berries will ultimately, one way or another, be reinvested in the soil, somewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @08:47PM
I kinda feel like going to McDonalds now.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 30 2014, @10:13PM
Resists. Just don't.
(You may reward yourself later at KFC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday July 01 2014, @01:23AM
Curse you! Curse you! Now I want to go now.
But seriously, when I was first introduced to McDung in 1968, I was hooked, especially on their french fries. I'm wearing a lot of those fries now. When my family took road trips I and my siblings always wanted to stop at McDung but we never did. In fact, we almost never ate fast food on road trips. It was always breakfast and lunch out of the cooler and dinner at a family-style restaurant.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:23AM
I heard that McFat burger breads are so resilient to decomposition it would do just fine as house insulation .. ;-)
Perhaps their synthetic sausage will do as lubricant in the car? :P
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday June 30 2014, @11:34PM
Kids recognize the logos of brands they use the most.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:33AM
There's a simple solution to deter this. Ban advertising for food that contains too much artificial ingredients and too little unmodified stuff. This is especially important for kids. Send parents to an education on the value of proper food and make them pay money for failing to cover feature health costs. Remove mainly-junk vending machines in public spaces and require they have X percent real food. Ie not 39 power bars and one scared little sandwich in the lower corner for an insane price.
Of course this won't go down with corporations making money on this scheme. Be it pharmaceuticals, farmer engineering, wide scale farmers, and crap restaurant chains. So until this happens, protect the people you care about.
A simple first step is to make use of adblocker on the television..