THURSDAY, Aug. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Mass media has the power to both encourage tobacco use, especially among young people, and to discourage it, according to a landmark study released Thursday by the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

"This is the first report to conclude that tobacco advertising and promotion increases tobacco use," said Melanie Wakefield, senior scientific editor of the report, The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use.

Children targets of $1.6 billion in food ads.

FTC advises that popular characters be tied to healthful products.

The commission studied spending directed at children ages 2-17. Spending on soda marketing came to $492 million, with the vast majority of that spending directed toward adolescents. For cereals, companies spent about $237 million, with the vast majority of that targeted to children under age 12.

In a perfect world, we'd all eat fresh fruit and veggies, low fat, high protein foods and fast foods would be non-existent.

But since we all live in the real world, fast food is a reality for nearly all of us.
Simply stated - Americans love fast food.

To answer the question of how much is too much, many nutritionists would say any amount is too much. Fast food is an overly processed collection of salty, saturated fats that offer little in terms of nutrition. And for the most part, the nutritionists are right.

What do you think about sports drinks? There are more brands out there, targeting (or focusing on) women. Some have lots of sodium, calories and sugar. Others are low-calorie, and all claim to provide electrolytes lost after exercise. How many of us low-to-moderate exercisers need our electrolytes replenished? Are sports drinks a marketing ploy for us to pay lots of money for something we don't need, or are they really beneficial in helping us drink more fluids after exercising? What do you think?