Oscar

The weighty issue of Australian television food advertising and childhood obesity
Owen B. J. Carter
The average subcutaneous skinfold thickness of Australian children has been steadily increasing since the mid 1970s.1 Body mass index (BMI) measurements suggest that the proportion of overweight Australian children has increased by between 60- 70% since 1985 and theproportion of obese children has more than tripled.1-4 This trend has been reported in most developed countries around the world.5-8 Various estimates suggest that between 23-27% of Australian children are overweight, including 5-9% who are obese.4,9-12
Health implications of childhood obesity
Obese children are at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease,13-16 highblood pressure,14,16 dyslipidaemia,13 type II diabetes,17,18 and sleep apnoea.19 There are also psychosocial problems frequently associated with childhood obesity such as depression,20 social isolation,21 poorer social functioning , negative physical self-perceptions, poorer general self-worth,22,23 and increased risk of eating disorders.22,24 Obese children also
Abstracthave poorer gross motor development than their non-obese peers.25 A large proportion of obese children (50-80%) also become obese adults.13,26,27 The World Health Organization (WHO) links obesity in adulthood to increases in the risk of morbidity and premature mortality due to insulin resistance and type II diabetes, high blood pressure, dyslipidaemia, cardiovascular disease, stroke, sleep apnoea,gallbladder disease, hyperuricemia and gout, and osteoarthritis.28 Epidemiological research also suggests that adult obesity is linked to elevated rates of death from at least 13 cancers.29
Causes of childhood obesity
Bodyweight is regulated by numerous physiological mechanisms that maintain balance between energy intake and energy expenditure, such that obesity is amultifactorial condition with genetic and environmental predictors.30-32 Parental obesity has been strongly associated with childhood obesity via both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.27,33-36 These studies are
Issue addressed: The aim of this paper is to provide an accessible overview of research literature on the link between childhood obesity and food advertising on Australiantelevision.
Methods: A systematic review of current medical, public health, psychological and marketing research literature surrounding the topics of childhood obesity and television food advertising, with emphasis on Australian data.
Results: Childhood obesity rates have tripled since 1985, mirrored by increases in consumption of energy-dense foods. Energy-dense foodadvertising is ubiquitous in children’s television programming, but children’s ability to perceive the commercial intent of advertisements only emerges gradually as a function of age. Until such time, children are trusting, and hence vulnerable, to food advertising, influencing their desires and purchase requests to parents. There is robust evidence to suggest that television viewing and childhoodobesity are related. However, the direction of causation and specific contribution of food advertising remains equivocal. Moreover, the link between television and childhood obesity is surprisingly weak, with only a small independent effect size (~1%).
Conclusions: Television food advertising seems to have only a very small, indirect link to childhood obesity. Health Promotion Journalof Australia 2006;17:5-11
So what?
Introducing tighter regulation of food advertising during children’s television timeslots would appear to have very little, if any, meaningful effect on childhood obesity rates. Indeed, banning all television would seem to have little impact in this respect. Future health promotion energies aimed at reducing childhood obesity would be...