Coca-Cola spent $895 million dollars on marketing , McDonalds spends about $1.2 billion dollars (Oh yes, we’re in the billions here)  on marketing, while Pepsi spent an overwhelming $2.1 billion dollars. These companies are paying big money just for you to know who they are.

All this money creates a culture that depends on advertisements to tell them when something new is coming out, or just to know that a product that we know exists, still exists. But is this for the better? Studies show that ads aren’t all what they’re cracked up to be.

In 2001, people spent around $110 billion dollars on fast food. Children see 34% more advertisement while preschoolers, yes preschoolers, watch 21% more ads on T.V. Studies show that women alone see 400-600 advertisements a day!

What does all this have to do with health? Obesity in children has increased by 300% since the 70′s. Between 2007 and 1008 it rose 17%!

Women are hit the hardest from advertisements, that not only push fast food, but also stress the need to stay thin:

• Studies show that the majority of teens with eating disorders are women, a whopping 90%.

• Around 80% of ten year old girls have tried dieting and 1 in 2 adult females are currently dieting today.

• In a Stanford study, 68% of women confessed feeling self-conscious after viewing a woman’s magazine.

• Another study shows that a majority of women with “normal” weight (75%) think they are overweight.

What are these statistics pointing to? Are ads really to blame for the growing obesity epidemic in the United States? A study conducted by the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) thinks it does and there’s a way to stop it:

• The research shows that a complete ban of fast food advertising would create a decrease in obesity by 18% in children.

• It also showed that if the government chose to stop companies from using advertising as tax deductible (which companies are doing right now) we would see a drop of 44% in ads.

It’s hard to change the grasp that advertising has on our society. It’s something deeply imbedded in our culture and identity. But slowly studies are uncovering that ads trick our psyche into continuing unhealthy habits. All this data is just the tip of the iceberg, but let’s hope it’s just a tiny iceberg.