Bad Advertising for Kids

Here's the latest negative on what many think is a poorly programmed medium-TV. A new study for Health Communication, a trade journal, says that not TV is confusing kids about nutrition too. It's bad enough that TV feasts on low level, dumbed down shows, but now it's sending the wrong signals about nutrition.
In short, it is making it harder for kids to understand what's a healthy diet and what's not. For example, the study cites the phenomenon in which kids equate terms like "diet" and "fat free" with healthy because TV commercials equate weight loss benefits to nutritional benefits.
This ignores the fact that what's good for an adult trying to lose weight won't necessarily meet the nutritional needs of growing children. Too, kids are even less analytical at what they see than adults, so the pabulum and oversimplifications of TV information given to kids is often taken as gospel.
The study, conducted at the University of Illinois, says "Given the plentitutde 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." By convincing kids that eating diet foods and trendy, but nutritionally empty foods, kids may be deprived of the nutrients needed for growth.
The study asked 100 children in the first through third grade to answer a questionnaire that assessed their nutritional knowledge, nutritional reasoning and their television viewing. They completed the questionnaire once at the start of the study and again six weeks later.
The results! It showed that the more TV the kids watched, the more confused they were about which foods are and aren't going to help them grow up strong and healthy. Too often they selected the diet and fat free choices rather than the nutritionally sound ones. Too, the study showed that increased TV viewing made the kids less capable of sound nutritional reasoning.
It does not surprise me, given the junk that dominates most TV channels. No one ever had to think too much watching TV.