Ban On Fast-Food Ads Reduced Consumption Of Junk Food In Quebec

So what? Here comes the lie of the study:

With mounting concerns over childhood obesity and its associated health risks in the U.S., would a ban on junk-food advertising aimed at children be more effective than the current voluntary, industry-led ban? According to published research from a University of Illinois economist, advertising bans do work, but an outright ban covering the entire U.S. media market would be the most effective policy tool for reducing fast-food consumption in children.

Kathy Baylis, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics, studied the ban on junk-food advertising imposed in the Canadian province of Quebec from 1984 to 1992 and its effect on fast-food purchases.

By comparing English-speaking households, who were less likely to be affected by the ban, to French-speaking households, Baylis and co-author Tirtha Dhar, of the University of British Columbia, found evidence that the ban reduced fast-food expenditures by 13 percent per week in French-speaking households, leading to between 11 million and 22 million fewer fast-food meals eaten per year, or 2.2 billion to 4.4 billion fewer calories (sic) consumed by children...

The big caveat to the study, according to Baylis, is that it's based on data from the 1980s and '90s.

There is no proof that kids ate billions of fewer Calories.

Even if the data are correct, they ate fewer Calories from this source, i.e., so-called fast food.

And the data show that Canadian kids were getting fatter during the period of the study.