A new report examining TV food advertising viewed by preschoolers, children and teens found that African-American youths are disproportionately exposed to junk food ads, viewing almost 50 percent more ads for unhealthy snacks than their white counterparts.
The study, conducted by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, attributed the concerning disparities to increased television watching time among Black children. But that fact by itself still didn’t explain why Black children were seeing ads for fast food and other unhealthy food options at much higher rates.
According to the report, junk food companies have increasingly advertised on networks with particularly high African-American and adolescent viewerships such as Fuse, BET, Vh1 and Nick-at-Nite. Jumps in food-ads-per-hour also contributed to increased exposure to junk food ads for youths of all ages between 2008 and 2012.
“Higher rates of food advertising on youth-targeted networks explained greater adolescent exposure,” the study read. “However, greater television viewing and higher rates of advertising on youth- and black-targeted networks both contributed to black youths’ greater exposure.”
In 2012, the report found that Black youths viewed considerably more food ads compared with white youths of the same age. For instance, Black children aged 2 to 5 viewed 64 percent more food ads, while Black youths aged 6 to 11 saw 49 percent more ads than their white counterparts. Moreover, the younger African-American children viewed approximately two more junk-food ads per day than even the older white kids.
Researchers noted that this increased exposure to low-nutrition food ads also made Black children more vulnerable to becoming obese and developing other diet-related health issues. Data from 2011 to 2012 revealed a stark gap in child obesity rates between Black and white youths: Eleven percent of Black children aged 2 to 5 were obese during this time, while just 3.5 percent of white children were. The disparity got larger as the kids grew older, with 23.8 percent of African-American children aged 6 to 11 being obese compared to 13.1 percent of their white peers.
The report pointed to a greater number of billboards advertising unhealthy food options in predominately Black neighborhoods as another possible culprit behind these concerning health figures.
“Understanding the relative contribution of factors leading to greater TV [and billboard] food advertising exposure for adolescents and Black youths is necessary to identify effective solutions to counter its harmful effects,” the study read. “Understanding the reasons for their greater TV viewing and identifying opportunities to reduce viewing would help address [these] health disparities affecting Black youths.”
Frances Fleming-Milici, a marketing researcher and the lead author of the Rudd study, said it’s no coincidence that junk-food companies have increasingly advertised on Black-targeted networks but admitted that it is sometimes difficult to determine the intentions of the food companies the Rudd Center challenges.
“[Rudd] uses the same data that companies use to place their ads,” Fleming-Milici told The Washington Post. “Ads are placed to reach a certain demographic.”
Expressions from The Melanin Man 
Our children are GMO lab rats. This has been going on for quite some time. Good post MM.
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It’s something that we don’t talk about but my family looks at me crazy because I don’t eat soul food because if all the bad shit in it. I don’t eat pork or beef but I’m the heathen in the family because I don’t want pigs feet or chiterlins? Smh. Hahahahaha yes these kids don’t know what real food is. I tasted them new chips ahoy red velvet cookies and you can just taste the machinery with each bite.
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Right man. We just tasting our lives away. But we’ve been trained to live with our emotions and not our logic smh. Whatever makes us feel good to ease the pain we neglect to confront.
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I’ll go a step further than Fleming-Milici here and assert that it is NOT “difficult to determine the intentions of the companies”. Too often we beckon to economic language about “supply and demand” – but all this does is muddy what is a clear and straightforward situation. These companies could have advertised on MTV or Lifetime – the channels white kids watch. The fact that they are opting to advertise to black kids almost exclusively demonstrates that it is not about money at all. It is about the desire for black destruction. White America loves to decorate black bodies in criminality and disease … it helps them sleep better at night knowing they are “fortunate”.
When we look at black areas, we find that they are “food deserts” – there are no supermarkets or farmer’s markets within walking distance or public transportation. But, at the same time, there is a surplus of nicotine advertisements, liquor stores, and predatory cash-for-gold shops. It boils down to the need to destroy blackness so that they can define themselves in comparison as other-than-black. How could humanity define itself if not for all the poor starving children in Africa – and all the black folks getting shot down in the streets by the police?! Advertising junk food to black kids is not solely about money. The old phrase is: you are what you eat. Feeding junk food to black kids is a corollary of the thought that blackness is garbage.
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Man I only know you through blogging but I love you bruh! Can I take it even another step further? These companies have done research on our genetics as well. They know that drugs and poisons bind to our melanin/ carbon. Therefore these foods destroy us more than they do other races of people. But these wolves in guise of sheep love to act as of they are innocent. What blows me, is how they purposely aim to destroy and wipe us off the planet and feel no way about it. They go to sleep and rest easy. This is a wicked beast we are facing.
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You on the money on that one! There is no way these companies didn’t know the effect these poisons would have on our body before they created them. They act like they didn’t then place these studies out later of the ” newfound” discoveries. Now they we have to get ourselves back too normal again, this spending more money in the process i.e. Weight Watchers, gym memberships, Slim Fast shir, etc. Invent the problem, create the solution smh they got us big time😧😧😧
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Boy did they ever. As KP said, we’re just mice on a wheel.
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Haha, I got love for you too my man!
Wow, I never knew about the research on our genetics so as to make their poisons work better. Damn. That’s wild. I wish I could say I am surprised.
They will stop at nothing to destroy us – it is a sadistic pastime for them. It gets them “off” to see us suffering. If we were not suffering, they would not know they had life, and they would not appreciate their life. We can only define ourselves by way of comparison, and we are the ultimate poster child of what/who not to be/do. They dump their toxic nuclear plants near our homes, they poison our water supplies – and nothing becomes of it. You are right: we are facing a wicked beast.
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Where are the local policy makers, community and church leaders who would advocate for grocery shops and farmers markets that will sell fresh fruits and vegetables in our communities.
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Good question…
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