I'm Dr. Michael Greger and this is Nutrition Facts.

There's one thing we've been thinking a lot about lately,

and that's how to stay healthy in the middle of a global pandemic,

especially since we've learned that those with underlying health problems like obesity,

hypertension, diabetes, heart disease,

are more likely to have serious complications if they contract COVID-19.

So what do we do?

We try to stay healthy with evidence-based nutrition.

We all like to think we make important life decisions,

like what to eat consciously and rationally.

But if that were the case, we wouldn't be in the midst of an obesity epidemic.

Here's part three of our obesity epidemic series,

starting with the role of food advertisements.

The opening words of the Institute of Medicine's report on the potential threat posed by food ads

were marketing works.

Yeah, there's a large number of well-conducted randomized studies I could go through,

showing advertising exposure to another,

marketing methods can change your eating behavior and get you to eat more.

What do you need to know beyond the fact that the industry spends tens of billions of dollars a year on it?

To get people to drink their brown sugar water,

do you think Coca-Cola would spend a penny more than they thought they had to?

It's like when my medical colleagues accept drug launches from pharmaceutical representatives and

...