The influence of social media have the big role for obesity in children

News24xx.com - Influencers and idols in social media can influence our children’s eating pattern. If an influencer recommends an unhealthy food, children will be compelled to eat it, and then they will become fat.

Among the foods that influencers can persuade children to eat are sweet foods with high glucose level and foods that contain high calorie level.

This conclusion is taken from the result of a research on 176 children. The research tried to find the reactions of the children toward the stars of social media.

The children were divided into three groups. They were shown different pictures from social media. One group was shown the picture of their idol promoting an unhealthy food. One group was shown their idol promoting a healthy food. The last group was shown their idol promoting a product that is not food.

After that, the children were offered many kinds of snack, from healthy to unhealthy, such as grape, carrot, chocolate and jelly beans. The children who saw the advertisement of unhealthy foods consumed around 448 calories at that time, while those who did not, only consumed 357 calories.

“If we show the advertisement for traditional drink to children, then their preference for that drink will increase,” said Anna Coates, the leader of the research. She explained that this research aimed to find out how children react to social media stars.

Researchers said that the advertisements of unhealthy foods are unfiltered in television, conventional media and social media. Right now, United States and Britain are facing obesity epidemic.

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