Fast Food/Sluggish Kids: Researching Media Saturated Domesticity

"A central theme in my study of Globesity is that children are the 'canaries in the coalmines' helping us to better understand the broader disruption of family life implicit in our media saturated lifestyles. Exploring the complex and paradoxical ways that screen media influence children’s patterns of play, leisure activities, their diet and food preferences, and their discretionary consumption I suggest that the phenomenon of child ‘globesity’ provides a exemplary case study for better understanding the constellation of issues associated with children’s so-called empowerment in the global marketplace. Attempts therefore to 'innoculate' children against commercial persuasion through advertising literacy is both inadequate and wrong-headed given the multiple risks associated with children's media saturated lifestyles."

This presentation is part of the  "Communication and Health: Troubling Promotion" series, organized and sponsored by the CIHR Canada Research Chair in Food Marketing, Policy and Children's Health. Both students and faculty are welcome. Refreshments will be provided.