Junk Food Ads Have a Massive Impact on Kids

According to the experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), children are exposed every day to many junk food ads in video blogs, social media, and apps. Based on the latest report, many parents are completely oblivious to the impact of these adverts on their children.

More precisely, kids are the target of these junk food ads. Governments were criticized by the WHO because they didn’t take active measures of reducing the ads volume circulating in the social media.

Doctors stressed that many children had to stick to a strict program to recover from obesity. Such a program consists of healthier diets and zero exposure to junk food ads. Video vloggers were also criticized by the WHO because they accepted being paid by retailers to promote junk food in their videos.

It is worth mentioning that brands promoted nowadays by vloggers are more compelling than those promoted by TV commercials or films. The report also points towards the fact that fast food chains use their restaurants as Pokemon Go locations, so children are drawn toward these places via this game, and they end up consuming unhealthy food very often.

Worse, these restaurant chains collect important data on kids including their preferences, likes, location, and age to better manipulate them using junk food ads.

According to Dr. Joao Breda, the WHO program manager for obesity, physical activity, and nutrition, the public health care regulations have major gaps when it comes to the impact of digital food marketing on children.

Breda further stresses that although they know about these risks, most parents are unaware of the fact that their children are exposed every day to many junk food ads which take their toll on kids’ minds.

This way, many children feel the urge to eat junk food very often and so, they develop unhealthy dietary habits which most of the time lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other long-term consequences.

To tackle this widely-spread issue, countries like the United Kingdom have implemented new regulations to protect kids from junk foods ads. Many children across the United States are at least overweight if not obese.

This situation is caused by a wide variety of factors related to poor food education and junk food ads. That is why the WHO urges governments to address this issue by releasing a new set of public health guidelines that will protect children from social media exposure related to unhealthy food.

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