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The Research Information

With the alarming rise in childhood obesity worldwide paediatricians, politicians and policymakers alike have made efforts to seek the causes of this frightening trend. In America the rates of childhood obesity in children aged 6-11 years had more than doubled since 1980. New Zealand is not doing so well either. With this increase comes a rise in chronic illnesses that are linked to obesity such as Type 2 diabetes, heart problems and breathing problems. Researchers have found many things that contribute to these growing obesity rates. These include: However, the purpose of this learning resource is to discuss the influence media, and more importantly, food advertisements have on the rise of obesity rates. So what do the researchers say about this?
 * a reduction in physical education in many schools
 * the availability of fizzy drinks and high fat, high sugar snacks in schools particularly high schools
 * a growing number of fast food outlets across the country
 * the increase in high fat, high sugar foods available in supermarkets
 * the increase in the amount of hours spent in front of the T.V. or other media.
 * the increase in food advertising aimed at children


 * 1) There has been a huge increase in media targeted at children that is infused with advertising
 * 2) Children spend an average of five and a half hours a day watching electronic media.
 * 3) Some studies say there is a relationship between watching lots of T.V. and being more overweight. Other researchers say there isn't.
 * 4) Advertising research says that T.V. can have an influence on what children buy.
 * 5) Children are very good at getting their parents to buy the things they see on T.V.
 * 6) <span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">The amount of time children spend watching T.V. is a big indicator of how often they will ask their parents to buy the things they have seen on T.V.
 * 7) <span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">There has been strong evidence to suggest that food commercials influence what children prefer.
 * 8) <span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Using toys and cartoon characters to sell food items helps children to remember the food more clearly.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Did you know...?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">A typical child watches 40,000 advertisments a year on T.V.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Over the time that childhood obesity has increased so have the number of ads that children watch.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">What the NZ statistics tell us.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Obesity statistics for New Zealand children
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">The 2006/07 New Zealand Health Survey found that: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Other statistics**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">One in twelve children (aged 2 to 14 years) were obese (8.3%).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">One in five children were overweight (20.9%).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">There has been no change in the average (mean) BMI for children aged 5-14 years since 2002.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">There has been a decrease in average BMI for Māori children.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Adjusted for age, Pacific boys and girls were at least 2.5 times more likely to be obese than boys and girls in the total population.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Māori boys and girls were 1.5 times more likely to be obese than boys and girls in the total population.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Have a look at the link below to see more information about what researchers say about obesity and watching television.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Two out of three (63.6%) children had fizzy drinks in the past 7 days. One in five(19.6%) children had more than 3 fizzy drinks in the last 7 days.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Seven out of ten (70.9%) children ate fast food in past seven days. One in seven (13.6%) ate fast food twice in past seven days and one in 14 (7.2%) had eaten fast food three or more times in past seven days.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Two out of three (64.1%) children aged 5-14 years usually watched two or more hours of television a day. This equates to 368,700 children.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Nine out of ten (87.8%) children aged 2-14 years ate breakfast at home every day in the past 7 days.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Just under half of children (47.0%) aged 5-14 years usually use active transport to get to and from school (walking, biking, skating or using other forms of physical activity). Common reasons given by parents for what stops their children walking, biking or skating to school – live too far from school, busy traffic/main road, too dangerous for reasons other than traffic, takes too long.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">http://www.medical-recipe.com/televisionandobesity.html