Kids today are nothing like their parents were when they were young. You say well they should look alike, they are family and they may look alike in their faces, but not in their waistlines. You ask yourself, “Why is this?” ” and that’s because “results suggest that fast food consumption has quintupled among children since 1970” (Ludwig). Since fast food is highly commercialized and found everywhere, this is leading to increased rates of childhood obesity in America. The average American child today watches "35 hours of television per week" and when you think about it, that's only 5 hours. shy of full-time work (Rothman). The kids I hang out with all watch Nickelodeon and the shows on that channel are usually 30 minutes long or at least that's the allotted time for the show. My brother and I both love watching SpongeBob and we love watching the show so much that we actually own a few SpongeBob DVDs. I've noticed something when we watch SpongeBob DVDs and when we watch SpongeBob on TV; on TV Spongebob Squarepants is "aired" for 30 minutes and on DVDs the show is only 22 minutes long, does that mean there are 8 minutes of commercials when you watch the show on television? I can't think of anything else that would take up those 8 minutes on TV, so it must be the commercials. If so, that would mean that children are exposed to 490 minutes of advertising per week! Studies “have found that fast food advertisements account for up to 23% of the food-related advertisements children see on television” (Powell). Thus, almost a quarter (112.7 minutes) of the advertisements that children watch each week are related to fast food. This may not seem like a high number, but it has more effect on children...... middle of paper ...... easy to get your hands on, not all the blame should be placed the fast food industry to make children obese, right? I think parents are also to blame because they are the ones who control their children and what happens around them or, better yet, inside them. Food empowerment project. Np, and Web. March 17, 2014. Holguin, Jaime. “Fast food linked to childhood obesity.” CBSNews. CBS Interactive, January 5, 2004. Web. March 16, 2014. “Fast food TV ads linked to childhood obesity, study finds.” » Fox News. FOX News Network, November 20, 2008. Web. March 17, 2014. Rothman, Lily. "Entertainment." Entertainment FYI parents, your kids are watching a full-time job worth watching every week. Time Entertainment, November 20, 2013. Web. March 17, 2014. Dietsch, Kevin. “Americans eat out about 5 times a week.” UPI. Np, September 19, 2011. Web. March 17. 2014.