The Good Food Campaign

BY the time the average American child has reached the age of 18, they’ve watched between 10,000 and 15,000 hours of television, and seen up to 200,000 commercials, according to research done for the Children’s Television Act, passed by the US Congress in 1990.

Also, a recent study undertaken by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) for that almost 80% of foods that are advertised on the Viacom network of stations are too high is fat, salt and sugars.

At the same time over 25% of American children are overweight or obsese, and this is leading to health problems, both as children, and later in adult life.

The Advertising Coalition reports that $10-$15 billion is spent annually on kids’ food advertising.

Researchers found that for each additional hour of television viewed per day, daily servings of fruits and vegetables decreased among adolescents possibly due to television advertising (Boynton-Jarret, R, 2003)

So, it could be in your child’s interest, and also your own, to watch out for some of those many junk food commercials on the TV.

Next time you sit down to look, see how many food commercials promote healthy eating of unprocessed natural foods, and how many fall into the category of junk.

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Dr Donald Casebolt, from Farmington, NM has spent two years studying the consequences of too much caffeine and a porr diet.

He learned that lots of coffee, soda and energy drinks with caffeine and junk food causes or worsens alcohol and drug addictions or both, he said.

You can read more about his findings in this article in today’s Daily Times

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The United States has long had a reputation for being a nation full of overweight junk food eaters. Of course, that’s not true, and the US isn’t really far ahead (if at all) of nations like the UK, in the amount of take-out junk food they consume, and the amount of processed food that they buy.

However, what might surprise some are the concerns being raised in countries like India. As the average consumer in India gets more disposable income they too, are turning more and more to Western style junk.

In Madurai, in southern India yesterday, the Health Minister, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss said, “The union health and family welfare ministry would continue its war against junk food, alcohol, tobacco and drugs as they are mainly responsible for making India “the capital of diabetes, heart ailments and obesity”.

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