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New study deciphers what compels kids to consume junk food!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY AIMAN INAM

MARYLAND: Savants conducted a research in order to pacify those parents who used to go haywire wondering what compelled children and  teenagers devour junk food and guzzle down harmful sodas (soft drinks)!

It transpired, following studies carried out in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Russia, that marketer and advertisers were the main culprits.  

So as to prove this, academics from the University of Maryland set out to know the association between the agenda behind marketing the brands, media coverage and its impacts on children.

After going through the data of some 2,422 children between the ages of five and six years, they concluded that kids, who identify the logos of international food and beverage brands, such as McDonald’s, KFC and Coca-Cola quickly, are highly likely to pick out processed foods marketed by them.

Character and logo remembrance is considerably compelling young kids to choose international brands over local/traditional food and beverage. Not to mention that the affect of logo identification is more potential as compared to media exposure.

As a matter of fact, international marketing targets young children not just through broadcast media in forms of commercials and product placement, but also via billboards, packaging, branded pajamas and backpacks to name the few, resulting into impacting children’s preference apropos food and beverage.

This dangerous practice triggers obesity among kids, which now has become the global health dilemma. As per the statistics, over a quarter of Chinese children are expected to be obese by 2030.

While demonstrating his concern, the study senior investigator Dina Borzekowski noted that kids are living in the milieu stuffed with messages that woo them into buying harmful food items.

Thereby, the only way to tackle the situation is to keep food and beverage marketing off from getting to naive children, which could only be achieved via imposing some potential rules and regulations over marketers.

M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.