Jackson Free Press

Quick: How can the U.S. (and Mississippi) reduce childhood obesity by 18 percent and reverse the current trends? Education? Better food in schools? Nope. It's simpler than that. Just ban fast-food advertising.

Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research published a study last month (funded by the National Institutes of Heath) that concludes banning fast-food advertising from children's programming could reduce the numbers of overweight American children.

It also makes sense that because 80 percent of obese children become obese adults, it might also have an impact on adult obesity and by extension, adult-onset diabetes, heart disease, stroke and a whole host of other diseases caused by obesity.

Reported on ScienceDaily.com the study was published in the Journal of Law and Economics:

"We have known for some time that childhood obesity has gripped our culture, but little empirical research has been done that identifies television advertising as a possible cause," says Chou, the Frank L. Magee Distinguished Professor at Lehigh's College of Business and Economics. "Hopefully, this line of research can lead to a serious discussion about the type of policies that can curb America's obesity epidemic."

The study also found that the elimination of tax deductibility tied to advertising would similarly produce declines in childhood obesity, albeit at a smaller rate of 5-7 percent. Advertising is considered a business expense and, as such, it can be used to reduce a company's taxable income. The authors deduce that, since the corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, the elimination of the tax deductibility of food advertising costs would be equivalent to increasing the price of advertising by 54 percent.

In a related ScienceDaily.com story from 2007, researchers found that watching food commercials increased overweight and obese children's appetites by up to 134 percent.