Youth-targeted junk-food ads: Do stricter laws mean leaner kids?

As a doctoral student in population health and the mother of three youngsters, Monique Potvin Kent is all too aware of how media messages can influence the eating habits of children and, ultimately, their health. In her research, she explores the laws in Canada that govern junk-food advertising directed at young audiences, especially on TV and on the Web.

More specifically, together with her thesis supervisor, Lise Dubois, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Nutrition and Population Health, Monique Potvin Kent is trying to clarify the distinctions between the regulations used throughout the Canada’s English-speaking provinces and those applied in Quebec. At the same time, she’s examining the effects of this legislation on the health and obesity rates of young children.

Potvin Kent is one of the first researchers in the world to include the Web in her studies on the topic. She stresses the importance of knowing what both TV and the Web are presenting to children, so we can then better understand the food choices youngsters make.

Finally, she says Quebec’s laws on child-targeted advertising are among the strictest in the world, and that might explain why the rate of childhood obesity is lower there than in other provinces.

Dominic Boutin
Published: February 2011