Children watching junk food advertisements consume more calories during the day, regardless of media types, a new UK -led study found.

Researchers stated that children aged 7 to 15 years of age 7 to 15 years of age to eat average 130 additional calories a day, equal to two slices of bread, for just five minutes of exposure to advertisements for high fat, salt, or sugar (HFSS) foods.

Conducted by Liverpool University and presented at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Malaga, which comes amidst growing calls globally to ban unhealthy food advertisements to curb the growing childhood obesity.

“This study provides significant new insights on how food marketing affects what young people eat. Even brief contact for unhealthy food advertisements can also consume more calories and over time, contributing to weight gain,” said the lead author Emma Bouland.

The randomized crossover trial consisted of 240 children from UK Mercestic schools, which were shown a five-minute blocks of HFSS food advertising or non-food advertisement in four media types: TV-style video (audiosul), image-online (eg social media posts), audio (eg radio or podcasts).

Advertisements vary between product-centered and brand-round formats, the latter only shows logo and branding without only specific food products.

Researchers found that after seeing junk food ads, children ate 58 more calories in snacks, 72 and 130 in lunch and in total, when they saw non-food advertisements.

Striking, brand-cavalry advertisements, which do not facilitate real food, were equally effective in increasing food intake as product advertisements.

The effect of food advertising was in line with all media types and was unaffected by the socio -economic background. However, children with high body mass index (BMI) score consume even more.

“For an increase in each standardized unit in BMI, children consumed an additional 17 calories. It can widen health inequalities more if left,” Boyland said.

He said that the study is the first to show the brand-e-one food advertisement that currently comes out of most advertising rules, yet food can increase.

Experts highlighted the facts that the conclusions strengthen the matter for governments to apply strict boundaries on all types of unhealthy food marketing targeted on young people.

“Marketing works, and it works fast. As long as policies hold the evidence, we risk that a generation of children indicates to grow up that encourages more food and poor diets,” said Boyland.

The study has increased the growing body of research with an increase in contact with HFSS food marketing, which increases childhood obesity crisis in many countries.