Energy, Environment, and Health

Rationale

Importance of a Healthy Diet in Adolescent Years

There is currently a growing obesity epidemic in the United States, as the number of Americans diagnosed as obese has increased by 70% in the last decade ⁴. Chronic diseases such as type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers are linked to obesity. Expenditures in the United States on the health care of obese individuals is 36% higher annually than those who are not overweight under the age of sixty-five ⁵. It is estimated that 34% of adolescents between 12-19 years old were overweight or obese in 2010 ⁶.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the prevalence of prediabetes and diabetes has increased two-fold in the past decade. The highest documented rates of incidence of type 2 diabetes in children is among minority groups aged 15-19 years. The number of physician-diagnosed adolescents aged 15-19 years old for non-Hispanic Whites was only 6%, while the prevalence of T2DM in Hispanics is 17%, 23% for Asian/Pacific Islanders, and 20% for blacks ⁷. This holds particular importance for the student population in East San Jose, which is primarily Hispanic and Southeast Asian.

Increased obesity in American adolescents has led to other even more severe health problems such as cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the United States. It is responsible for one out of every three deaths that occur in the country ⁸. The health care costs associated with cardiovascular diseases are approximately $149 billion annually, or about 17% of all medical expenses in the United States ⁹. The simplest and most effective strategy to lower these costs would be to involve the population in preventative measures, such as creating a change in the diet.

How Advertising to Youth Affects Food Preferences

One major factor in consumer choice amongst teens is how they are marketed to in today's media. On average, adults spend 5.2 hours watching TV, 3 hours surfing the Internet, 1.4 hours listening to the radio and 0.7 hours with mobile phones ¹⁰. Television plays a significant role in consumer engagement, as consumers attribute advertisements seen on television as the most influential factor of all media types in deciding to purchase a product or service ¹¹. In 2009, teens spent an average of 3.5 hours per day watching television ¹². During this time, 21.3 commercials air per hour, and 47.5% of these are advertisements for food, a majority of which are promoting foods high in fat, sugar, and salt ¹³.

Commercials that target today's youth take advantage of the viewing time and age of the consumer. Children under the age of 8 cannot discriminate between commercial and non-commercial programming nor do they have the skills necessary to critique advertisements for their content ¹⁴. When children are bombarded with over 200,000 commercials a year, several of which advertise foods high in fats, oils, and sweets, it is no surprise that students prefer vending machine snacks over fresh produce, especially when the nearest farmer's market may be over a mile away and open for business only once a week. Advertisers will spend a substantial amount of money to capture some of the $330 billion of parental spending, particularly when three quarters of teenagers influence family food purchases. It is also no mistake that non-nutritious foods are aired more frequently during prime time television hours than at other times.

Television and other forms of advertisement have a dramatic effect on the pathway to consumption. Children remember slogans, advertising jingles, and company mascots from commercials as short as 30 seconds in length. Branding also plays a key role in triggering memories associated with specific products. When children who have been exposed repeatedly to these commercials are given consumer choice for which products to purchase, the memory triggers become far more effective. Unfortunately, if a product is a calorie-dense, processed food with a low nutritional value, then the child will choose and consume the product without serious consideration of its effect on his or her health.

Preference of Youth to Hot Cheetos and Other "Junk" Food

Junk food is defined by the Columbia Encyclopedia of Nutrition as "foods that are high in calories but low in, or sometimes devoid of, other nutrients ¹⁵." These are often popular with urban youth because these snacks are convenient and appeal to taste, despite being low in nutritional value. These foods also tend to be prepared en-mass and processed in factories. Although there is this general understanding of what constitutes "junk food," there are no specific guidelines for determining or labeling food as such.

When it comes to food access, junk foods are readily available in urban environments. The physical location of a group of students has a great impact on their food choices, and therefore their lifestyle choices and risk for becoming overweight. One study found that the presence of large chain supermarkets, which tend to carry healthy foods at a lower cost, varies by socioeconomic barriers such as race, ethnicity, and income ¹⁶. Simply put, in low-income areas, there are more convenient stores and less supermarkets. This trend is statistically significant across the United States, with 1.3 times as many convenience stores in low-income zip codes as compared to middle-income urban neighborhoods ¹⁷. This is noteworthy because the lack of access to healthy foods has shown a significant correlation to lower diet quality. Furthermore, the difference in the average price of food sold in convenient stores and supermarkets reveals an economic barrier to eating healthy. The prevalence of low-priced, high sugar snacks in convenience foods stems from government subsidization of certain commodities (e.g. corn subsidies make domestic corn more affordable to use as an ingredient in many popular snack foods) ¹⁸. It is for these reasons that studies show socioeconomic status and ethnic background significantly affect obesity rates.

Branding and product recognition is so strong in adolescent populations that the popular snack distributed by the Frito-Lay corporation, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, is a strong example of processed food ideal for study. Flamin' Hot Cheetos are affordable snack that are sweet and calorie-dense, and are readily available in urban environments. Known in schools as the "red menace," schools in San Jose and across the country have banned the original version of the snack. Frito-Lay now distributes a baked version, which prepares food by baking rather than frying; this version is now available in vending machines around the East Side Union High School District. Most of the ingredients in this snack have chemical additives to make the cheese puff appeal to school-age children. One expert claims that spicy food that elicits a burning feeling causes the body to release comforting chemicals (endorphins) to cope with the pain ¹⁹.

The Frito-Lay website allows consumers to enter in the desired product and find local stores that sell the desired product. A search for Flamin' Hot Cheetos revealed twenty six registered vendors that sell this snack under a one mile radius of the school. When the zip code of a more affluent school of the same district was entered, this search rendered only ten registered vendors within a mile ²⁰. While this may simply be an indicator of food preference of students, it may also be an indication of a link between diet and academic performance, as my school performs lower on standardized tests than the more affluent comparison school. Indeed, Red 40, a dye used in Flamin' Hot Cheetos, is linked to impaired academic performance ²¹.