Guess what happens when TV ads guide your diet

If your diet follows the food advertisements you see on TV…well…let’s just say you’re an overachiever.

In a new study (which can be filed under “Why did you bother to study that?” or more simply “Uh…duh”), researchers compared the nutritional content of food in TV ads to nutritional guidelines.

Results? Take a wild guess.

A “TV ad diet” would provide more than 2,500 percent of the recommended daily servings of sugars, more than 2,000 percent of the RDS for fat, but only 40 percent of the RDS for vegetables, and less than 30 percent of the RDS for fruits.

The researchers conclude that TV ad food choices encourage nutritional imbalance. (Not to mention long lines in fast food drive-through lanes coast to coast.)

It does make me wonder, though–if someone were to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising apples on TV, would apples become wildly popular?

I doubt it. Unless they were salted, sugared, deep fried, and dipped in chocolate.

Hmmm…maybe I’m on to something.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson

Source:
“Nutritional Imbalance Endorsed by Televised Food Advertisements” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 110, No. 6, June 2010, adajournal.org