Washington (SmartAboutHealth) - According to a new study, the best way to fight childhood obesity may be to ban fast food ads on television.

Researchers led by Shin-Yi Chou from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania carried out a study to see what impact fast food ads had on kids.

They used data on 13,000 children from the 1979 Child-Young Adult National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, as well as the National Longitudal Survey of Youth in 1997.

They discovered that by reducing the number of fast food ads on TV, you could actually reduce obesity levels among kids.

By taking out fast food ads from television, it is believed that obesity levels for kids aged 3-11 could be cut by 18%. Kids 12-18 would see a reduction by 14%.

The biggest issue with this new study is actually trying to put in place a ban on fast food ads.