Ads for Sugary Drinks Target Kids, Study Says

A new study is attacking the advertising tactics of the makers of sugary drinks. Their complaint? These companies target kids through strategic product placement, reward marketing, and cause-related marketing as well as on TV ads, the Internet and Facebook.

The study is complaining about such products as soft drinks, sports drinks, fruit drinks, and energy drinks.

To come to these conclusions, the researchers looked at the way 14 companies marketed nearly 600 products. Most of what they found was not surprising, in my opinion. After all, the makers of sugary drinks, like sodas, have long marketed to children.

But what did surprise me, as it did the researchers, was that most of these manufactures claim health benefits of their products on the packaging. For instance, claims of “natural ingredients” or “real ingredients,” persuade even parents that these drinks are healthy.

In addition, many fruit drinks and energy drinks contain as much sugar as full calorie soda. Yet these companies lead children and parents to believe that these are healthy alternatives to sugary sodas.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

What do you think of the results of this study? Will you now limit sodas, fruit drinks, and energy drinks from your children’s diet?

Pot Smokers Less Obese than Non-Pot Smokers, Study Finds

Photo Credit: Matthew Maaskant

Guess what? Pot smokers don’t have to worry about packing on the pounds from the “munchies.” A recent study indicated, in fact, that pot smokers are less obese than their non-smoking counterparts.

The study, published in the September 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, was conducted by a research team in France.

The team, led by Yann Le Strat, a Psychiatrist at the Louis-Mourier Hospital in Colombes, studied the pot smoking habits (or lack therof) of some 50,000 U.S. adults from two separate studies. The researchers concluded that only 14% to 17% of pot smokers who smoked this illegal substance at least 3 days a week were obese. Conversely, 22% to 25% of the non-pot smokers in the study were obese.

Does this mean that pot smoking keeps you thin or makes you lose weight despite the munchies? Not so fast, say the researchers. This is only a preliminary study. The researchers, in fact, did not factor in the diet and exercise habits of the research subjects which could account for these findings.

So before you light up the weed to lose weight—and perhaps lose your freedom—you’d best wait for more research.