The more television kids watch at home, the more confused they are about which foods are, and which aren’t, going to help them grow up strong and healthy, says research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Researcher Kristen Harrison at Illinois believes that foods marketed as helping weight loss are particularly problematical for the children who equate the words ‘diet’ and ‘fat-free’ with being nutritious. The study, published in the journal ‘Health Communication’, says that TV advertising intentionally blurs the lines between diet and nutrition by equating weight-loss benefits with nutritional benefits. Child viewers are bombarded with health claims in television advertising. Given the advertisements 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. The study recommends that adults, on their part, should be able to understand the difference between foods that are nutritious and those that aren’t, because it is too much to expect kids to understand at their age.
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