Advertisements may be contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic.

Cookies, candy, sugary cereal, soda pop and fast food. All of these high-calorie, low-nutrition foods seem ubiquitous in television commercials.

But could these television advertisements be contributing to the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic?

Though the debate is ongoing, Inas Rashad, an assistant professor of economics at Georgia State University, says yes.

“We did find a correlation between television advertisingæ…æand childhood obesity,” Rashad says of a study she conducted with Shin-Yi Chou, professor of economics at Lehigh University, and Michael Grossman, a professor of business and economics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. [more]