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DENVER – In the middle of a nationwide crisis in childhood obesity your tax dollars are helping make kids even fatter, according to a Colorado watchdog group.

The group says it’s because farm subsidies are going to pay for junk food, with Denver taxpayers paying to produce foods with sweeteners and fats.

It adds up to billions in profits, but it’s on the backs of our children.

We did an unscientific test with two, three and four-year-olds at the Cherry Creek Farmers Market.

The kids were given a choice between an apple and a Twinkie.

A little girl named Izzie chose the Twinkie. When we asked her why she picked the Twinkie she pointed to the apple and said, “Because … I don’t like it.”

The new study claims you pay enough in subsidies to buy 19 Twinkies a year, but only one quarter of an apple.

"It is absolutely absurd that we are using taxpayer money to make junk food cheaper," said Danny Katz, the director of the Colorado Public Interest Research Group.

But COPRIG says that's exactly what's happening with the corporate farm lobby.

“The government should be spending the money for small farmers," said Julie Schaefer, a shopper at Cherry Creek Farmers Market.

The study says in the past year, Denver taxpayers have spent less than $32,000 to subsidize healthy foods like those at the market, but over $2,000,000 to subsidize junk food.

“Childhood obesity is just the most obvious sign that this is happening,” said farmers market customer Emma Tauchman.

Unlike healthy raw vegetables, the study says subsidized corn syrup, starch and soy fats are inserted into thousands of products, taking their toll through obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in children.

"On the health, not just of our kids and our citizens, but also on the health of the soil and the land," said Lyle Davis, operator of Pastures of Plenty Farm, an organic farmer in Boulder.

But getting kids to make the right choice takes work.

We asked two-year-old Sophie if she preferred to have an apple or a Twinkie, and she immediately pointed at the apple.

Then we asked her twin sister Kate which one she wanted and she immediately went for the Twinkie. Four-year-old Mathias hesitated a moment before picking the apple.

“We can't do it unless we remove the subsidies that are skewing the marketplace to make those foods cheaper and more accessible to people,” said COPRIG’s Katz.

The mothers of the kids we talked to say none of them actually eats Twinkies.

But the study says far too many families find themselves in the catch 22, caught between buying cheap, fattening products as the mainstay of their diets or buying healthier, but more expensive food.