Eat To Live: TV Food Ads Make Kids Eat

By JULIA WATSON

Here are two provocative new assertions to put in your pipe and smoke. Or better not — that would be as bad for your health as these two allegations:

Food is as dangerous an influence on children watching TV as sex and violence. And quality time with fathers makes children fat.

Strong stuff.

With 14 percent of English children clinically obese, Britain’s Food Standards Agency wants to stop TV ads for snacks and sodas before 9 p.m. when they are still awake and watching. (The FSA should peep into the windows on housing estates in economically distressed neighborhoods. They would find children still glued to their sets close to midnight. What cheaper babysitter for moms and dads desperate for a quiet beer at the pub or around the kitchen table?)

Sonia Livingstone, professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics, says evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom shows children eat more after being bombarded with TV food ads.

The FSA is not impressed with the proposals the independent media regulator Ofcom has just dished up for it on how to restrict junk-food commercials on TV. It has not proposed, as the FSA would like, that they be banned before the 9 p.m. watershed, which doesn’t allow sex or violence to be shown.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, too, may have the television set in its sights.

A report just released finds that parents’ circumstances and how they interact with their children have a huge influence on whether their children will become obese.

It probably won’t come as a revelation to anyone that household income and parents’ work situations play a large part in building obesity.

But the surprise is that whether it’s Mom or Pop who gives the attention has an influence.

The more time moms spend with their children, the lower their body mass index (that’s fat to us non-specialists). When dads are in charge, the higher their BMI. Perhaps because quality time as far as dads are concerned often means couch-potato-ing in front of the TV?

If both moms and pops are looking after their kids together, they will consume more calories. The whole family slumped in front of the television is an easy way to feel cozy.

Let’s hope, for the sake of moms and their children, that dads don’t use this piece of information as an excuse to slope off by themselves somewhere with The Boys.

Ofcom thought it would satisfy parents and medical providers concerned about Britain’s increasing child obesity by suggesting a ban on junk-food ads in commercial breaks during pre-school programming. It also proposed restricting or banning them in programs for under-10s.

The FSA dismissed these piffling efforts and argued that a ban on all junk-food commercials before 9 p.m. would also protect older children.

The British Heart Foundation’s campaigns officer, Josh Bayly, told the BBC, The obesity problem in this country has got to such a serious state now that any action we can take we really must take. Around 80-90 percent of television advertising is junk food advertising — food that is high in fat, sugar and salt.

Yum!, says every couch-potato dad reaching for his sack of chips to share with Junior.

The TV companies complained a ban would cost them $259 million in lost advertising revenue.

Place your bets please on which side you think will win this battle.

If they must watch television and can’t without a crunchy snack in hand, try this.

— Roasted Vegetable Chips

— their favorite root vegetable that isn’t a potato (to get them off the association): carrots, beetroot, celery root, a little sweet potato

— vegetable oil

— salt

— Preheat oven to 400 F.

— Peel and slice vegetables on the fine single-slot side of a grater or mandolin into postcard-thick slices.

— Put in a mixing bowl and toss with a tablespoon or two of oil to coat very lightly.

— Spread on a roasting pan and put in the oven to bake, turning every 4-5 minutes, till crisp and dry.

— Sprinkle lightly with salt and serve when cool.

—

E-mail: consumerhealth@upi.com